ABBA (1972–1982) were a
Swedish pop music group.
ABBA are the most successful act ever to come out of Scandinavia,
and rank among the top acts in the history
of popular music. The quartet topped worldwide charts from the
mid-1970s to the early 1980s.
They remain a fixture of radio playlists and continue to sell
albums. The group have sold "more than 350 million
records, all but one being self-penned.
They were the first act from the European continent to enjoy
consistent success in the charts of the anglophonic
world (the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and
New Zealand), and their enormous popularity
subsequently opened the doors for many other European acts. They
introduced Swedish music into the international
mainstream, and have done much to establish pure pop as an equal
among more "hip" music genres.
Studio albums: Ring Ring - Waterloo - ABBA - Arrival - The Album -
Voulez-Vous - Super Trouper - The Visitors
Compilations: Greatest Hits - Greatest Hits Vol. 2 - Gracias Por La
Música - The Singles: The First Ten Years -
ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits - More ABBA Gold: More ABBA Hits - Thank
You For The Music - ABBA Oro: Grandes Exitos -
The Definitive Collection
Hit-Singles: "Ring Ring" - "Waterloo" - "So Long" - "I Do, I Do, I
Do, I Do, I Do" - "SOS" - "Mamma Mia" -
"Fernando" - "Dancing Queen" - "Money, Money, Money" - "Knowing Me,
Knowing You" - "The Name of the Game" -
"Take a Chance on Me" - "Eagle" - "Summer Night City" - "Chiquitita"
- "Does Your Mother Know" - "Voulez-Vous" -
"Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" - "I Have a Dream" -
"The Winner Takes It All" - "Super Trouper" -
"Lay All Your Love on Me" - "One of Us" - "Head Over Heels" - "The
Day Before You Came" - "Thank You For The Music"
The ABBA name
Around 1973 Stig, having tired of the unwieldy names, started to
refer to the group privately and publicly as ABBA.
This was done as a joke at first, since Abba was also the name of a
well-known fish-canning company in Sweden.
However, since the fish canners were more or less unknown outside
Sweden, Stig came to believe the name would work
in international markets and so it stuck. Later the group negotiated
with the canners for the right to use the name.
ABBA is an acronym formed from the first letters of each group
member's name: Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid
(Frida).It is usually written ABBA but is sometimes written as a
word, Abba. Abba is "father"
in Hebrew but the band claims that to be unintentional. The first B
in the logo version of the name was reversed
on the band's promotional material from 1976 onwards.
One can speculate that ABBA might have gone on longer if it were not
for the band's personal turmoils:
the two married couples were both divorced by this point. Songs like
"The Winner Takes It All",
"When All Is Said And Done" and "One Of Us" gave glimpses of
personal issues ABBA's members were facing,
although lyric writer Ulvaeus still claims that the lyrics were not
autobiographical.
In the spring 1982, the group gathered to record a new album and
discussed a small tour.
In the end they settled for a double album compilation of all their
past successes with two new songs.
The double album The Singles: The First Ten Years topped the UK
album chart and was a worldwide bestseller
that collected glowing reviews:
