ABBA

ABBA wrote some of the most durable pop songs ever recorded. The Swedish quartet formed in Stockholm in 1972, won the world over, and left behind a catalogue that has stayed in heavy rotation for fifty years. The four members, Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, gave the group its name from their first initials.

Waterloo and the rise

ABBA won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with “Waterloo”, a victory that launched their international career. The hits poured out over the rest of the decade: “Mamma Mia”, “SOS”, “Fernando”, “Money, Money, Money” and “Dancing Queen”, their only US number one. They became the best-selling band of the 1970s.

Two couples, darker songs

At their peak ABBA contained two married couples. As both marriages came apart at the end of the decade, the songs grew more introspective, none more so than “The Winner Takes It All”, widely heard as a portrait of divorce. The group quietly disbanded in 1982.

The long afterlife

Their music never went away. The compilation ABBA Gold became a global best-seller, and the musical Mamma Mia! and its films turned the catalogue into a phenomenon for new audiences. Madonna built her 2005 hit “Hung Up” around a sample of ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!”.

Voyage

In 2021 ABBA returned with Voyage, their first new album in forty years. The following year they launched ABBA Voyage in London, a concert performed by digital avatars of the members in their 1970s prime, backed by a live band. Decades after their split, ABBA found a new way to take the stage.

Most loved songs

A spread across the catalogue. Each title opens through the in-site player.

From a Eurovision winner to a chorus you have sung at every party, the odds are good an ABBA song lives somewhere in your memory. Type the line you remember into the search box above and you may find it leads back to them.