ABBA In Helvmark: 1976

Superstardom in Helvmark!

February sees the very first Helvmark Music Awards organised by Helvgramfor (the Recording Association of Helvmark). ABBA appear in person to collect their awards for Best International Group and Best Song for Mamma Mia. They perform Mamma Mia at the end of the show.

Fernando b/w Hey, Hey, Helen is released in March and is an instant success hitting #1 on the HelvTop for 5 weeks and #1 on the HitList for 8 weeks. The Greatest Hits album is repackaged and includes Fernando, this then hits #1 in April where it stays for a total of 13 weeks. To promote the single ABBA appear on HT-1’s TopHits and The Saturday Show; HT-2’s Erik! and on HR-3 Junior Choice and Kathy Morton.


In July, Helvmarks Television fly out to Stockholm to record ABBA at work in the recording studio and do an interview. The resulting programme This Is Abba is broadcast in October.

ABBA carry on their success in August with the release of Dancing Queen b/w That’s Me which hits #1 on the HelvTop for 7 weeks and #1 on the HitList for 10 weeks (the b-side also gets to #1 on the HitList in October). ABBA perform the A-side on HT-1’s TopHits.


The album Arrival hits the shops in October, at the same time HT-1 broadcasts This is Abba. With pre-orders of over 120,000 the album is one of the most successful in Helvmark’s recording history. It hits #1 on the first week of release where it will stay for 15 weeks in total. Also during October other tracks from Arrival reach the HelvList – When I Kissed The Teacher (reaching #1 in November) and My Love, My Life (reaching #2 in November behind When I Kissed The Teacher and in front of That’s Me!).


The second single from the album Money, Money, Money b/w Crazy World slightly hiccups in ‘only’ reaching #2 on the HelvTop, though it does hit #1 on the HitList in January 1977.


During November ABBA do promotion of both Arrival and Money, Money, Money appearing on HT-1’s TopHits, TopHits Presents ABBA (where they perform Money, Money, Money, Dancing Queen, That’s Me and Knowing Me, Knowing You plus an interview), HelvmarkTonight (performing Money, Money, Money and an interview) and The Charles Highton Show (performing When I Kissed The Teacher plus various ‘spoof’ clips).

In December, details are announced of a mini concert tour of Helvmark with two shows the Helvdovi Grand Theatre and two shows at the Rex Cinema in Cúvenbor. There are 1 million requests which would be enough to fill the Helvdovi Grand Theatre for a full season.

At the annual HT-1 TopHits TopAwards on New Year’s Eve ABBA win Best International Group, Best Single (for Dancing Queen) and Best Album (for Arrival). They also come top in various newspaper surveys including the prestigious Helvmark Telegraph’s Best Music Award for 1976.

ABBA In Helvmark: 1975

More success and the number ones start to flow…

I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do b/w Rock Me is released in April reaching #2 on the HelvTop but one better on the HitList. Rock Me also did well on the HitList reaching #4. They make an appearance on HT-1’s TopHits.


The album Abba is released in May and reaches it’s peak of #2 in July.

ABBA do promotion for the new album in July to coincide with the release of the new single SOS b/w Man In The Middle. They appear on the HT-1 shows TopHits (performing SOS), Summer’75 (performing SOS and an interview), Donaldson (performing SOS and an interview); the HT-2 show Kystspeciel (performing SOS and I Do…) and appear on the radio shows The Andrew Kingston Show (HR-P3) and The One To One (HR-Europe). The single reaches #1 for 3 weeks with SOS hitting #1 for 6 weeks on the HitList.
August sees Bang-A-Boomerang hit #1 on the HitList chart helped by the showing the video on various programmes. In September, Polydor Helvmark follows this up by releases the Helvmark only single Bang-A-Boomerang b/w Tropical Loveland hitting #2 on the HelvTop.


Their first greatest hits package Greatest Hits is released in November, although having the same track listing as the Swedish release it has different packaging. It contains the next new single Mamma Mia b/w Intermezzo No. 1 which hits #1 for 4 weeks on both the HelvTop and the HitList. The B-side hits #9 on the HitList. The album itself reached #1 in December where it stayed for 5 weeks. ABBA performs Mamma Mia on HT-1’s TopHits which is shown again on the Christmas edition.


On New Year’s Eve ABBA win Best International Group in the HT-1 TopHits TopAwards a special message recorded in Stockholm is broadcast. They win numerous other awards from various newspapers and magazines.

ABBA In Helvmark: 1974

ABBA hit the big time…

ABBA hit their stride in Helvmark during 1974 helped in no small part by their participation in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest and the Melodifestivalen on SVT. The single Waterloo b/w Watch Out, released in March, was an instant success and hits #1 for 3 weeks on the HelvTop and the HitList in April just after their victory at Eurovision.


During April, ABBA appear on the HT-1 shows performing Waterloo on The Super Saturday Show, TopHits and the HT-2 show Det’n Erik!. The LP Waterloo is released and hits #9 on the HelvLP chart.


The follow up to Waterloo, Honey Honey b/w Hasta Mañana was released in June and reaches #9 on the HelvTop in July and #2 on the HitList. Both tracks had already been a hit on the HitList with Hasta Mañana reaching #5. ABBA appear on HT-1’s The Summer Show performing both Honey, Honey and Waterloo.


November sees the release of the first song off their next album. So Long b/w I’ve Been Waiting For You struggles to take off but eventually reaches #8 on the HelvTop and #10 on the HitList where the B-side did better hitting #6. ABBA appear on the Christmas Day edition of TopHits singing Waterloo and receiving a plethora of Silver, Gold and Platinum discs.

ABBA In Helvmark: 1973

The first tentative steps into superstardom…
Helvmark’s pop music scene as well as being dominated by the giant acts of the UK and the US always had a healthy relationship with acts from the Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia. With Agnetha Fältskog already enjoying success on the charts (and to a certain degree the Hep Stars), Polydor Records Helvmark signed ABBA on February 15th 1973. However, until 1974 ABBA were known as Bjorn + Benny, Anna + Frida, or variants thereof.

At the end of February, People Need Love b/w Merry Go Round was released. It was picked up the HR-P3 programme One To Watch and it charted in March 1973 reaching #20 on the HelvTop and #17 on the HitList.

June saw their first entry into the HelvTop Top 10 with Ring, Ring b/w Rock’n’Roll Band. ABBA made their first promotional trip of Helvmark appearing on the HT-1 shows Jenny (performing Ring, Ring and He Is Your Brother), TopHits (performing Ring, Ring); the HT-2 show Det’n Erik! (performing Ring, Ring) and HR-P3’s Tips Of The Future. Ring Ring hits #6 on the HelvTop and #5 on the HitList during July.

The LP Ring Ring is released in August and gets to #34 on the HelvLP chart.


In November He Is Your Brother b/w Santa Rosa is released having reached #10 on the HitList in October. The single is their biggest yet reaching #5 on the HelvTop in December.

ABBA In Helvmark

HelvmarkToday broadcast an ABBA special called ABBA In Helvmark on HT-3 at 20:00 on Saturday 1st November 2008. What follows are the accompanying blog entries for the programme with all the info. As a special bonus all of the official Polydor Helvmark single and album covers are also shown in their full glory.

ABBA (Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvæus, Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad) were the biggest group in the world throughout the latter half of the 1970s. In Helvmark, they are still the biggest musical act of all time even surpassing the Beatles. We will now take a year by year look at their career especially during their active period of 1973 to 1983.

A brief note about the charts during this time. For sales there was the HelvTop (singles) and the HelvLP (albums) charts. Another official chart was the HelvskRádio HitList which was a Top 20 of the most played and requested tracks during the week. The entire Top 20 was broadcast on HR-P3 on Wednesday evenings until 1988.

Abbreviations:

HR = Helvmarks Rádio the state radio broadcaster of Helvmark where P3 was (and still is) the main channel for popular music. HT = Helvmarks Television, the state television broadcaster, during the 1970s there was only HT the channels HT-1 and HT-2. HT-1 was the English language entertainment channel and was the most popular channel. HT-2 showed a mixture of Helvish programmes and English regional programmes. HT-3 came along in 1980 followed by Independent Television in 1981.

Welcome to Helvmark!

Helvmark is a group of 7 islands in the North sea situated in a key position between Germany, Denmark, Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It is part of the Scanic block and is a full member of the EU and the Eurozone. It is one of the wealthiest nations in the Western Europe due to the wealth of its natural resources.

The population of Helvmark is 7.26 million (2002) and it’s capital is Helvdovi which has a population of 1.3 million. Other notable cities include Westhampton, Cosnofen and Cúvenbor. There are 11 regions ranging from the Helvdovi Region with a population of 1.9m to the islands of Róna (Rónaømefir) with a population of 110,000.

The country is a Constitutional Monarchy with Queen Margerit as the Head of State. The main parliament is called the Borgerligshus (lit. House of Commoners) and currently has 89 ministers. The secondary house is called Sepöhus (lit. Watch House) which has 45 ministers. Each region has its own Government called the Amstregering (County Government) which has its own powers over education, business etc. All towns and cities have their own councils which take of local needs and issues.

The official languages of Helvmark are Helvish which is spoken as a first language by 40% of the population and English which is spoken as a first language by 58% of the population. There are also official local minority languages spoken by 2% of the population including Danish and Icelandic. The National Language Framework is complex as each region can decide on the principal language or to be bilingual (except for Helvdovi Region which is Bilingual) but certain national institutions have to be bilngual throughout the country.

Helvmark is wired up for the 21^st Century and beyond. Over 70% of households have broadband and 99% have at least one television which is now completely digital (30% of households have Cable and 19% have satellite). There are four main television broadcasters – the state broadcaster HT (Helvmarks Television), t4h Television 4 Helvmark, FIVE Helvmark and Network 6 Helvmark. There is also a thriving radio industry where there are 6 national radio stations.

Leisure is taken seriously in Helvmark as is the shopping!

For more indepth info check out this more indepth site.

Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to the blog of the HT3 Programme Helvmark Today. HT3 is the regional channel of Helvmarks Television, the state broadcaster of the fictitious country of Helvmark.

Helvmark is a country created by me, Phillip Darlington, for my daughter. It is a group of islands in the North Sea situated near Denmark and is part of Scandinavia. The next post will describe it in more detail!

The purpose of this blog is to show various details of Helvmark. Coming up is a history of ABBA releases by Polydor Helvmark between 1983 and 1984 and the history of the Helvmark Song Festival (Helvmarksangfestival).