ABBA never split up. There was never an official announcement – no one really cared. But oh, wow, did they care when they announced their return. It was rightly reported as the second coming of pop-Jesus. Between 1982 when they slinked off and 2021 when they announced the new album and “tour” we’d wanted so desperately, they’d become pop royalty. How did things change so much for a band that had stopped making music? How did absence make our hearts grow so fond? And why did it take them such a long time to come back to our welcoming arms?
Sure, ABBA sold a lot of records worldwide – there’s no denying that. In Australia the only bigger band has been The Beatles. Even as ABBA ebbed away, the band’s final five albums all still went to No.1 in the UK. They were popular, lots of people liked them. But a lot of people didn’t. Robert Christgau, the self-titled "Dean of American rock critics" declared in his review of Greatest Hits Vol. 2 that, “We have met the enemy and they are them.” He wasn’t alone. The classic Faber Book Of Pop, which collected the best music journalism over the years, fails to even mention them, despite devoting 350 pages to the 70s and 80s. Benny and Bjorn noticed, the latter telling the Guardian in 2002, “There aren't as many ABBA awards as you might imagine. For the main part of the group's lifespan, the critics despised us.”
With hindsight it’s perfectly obvious that they were going to split up, with or without the critics’ help. As a band ABBA had been at the coalface for a decade, a decent stint in pop terms. Additionally, sales were dwindling, and they admit now that they were musically behind the times. But as well as The Visitors containing stone cold classic One Of Us, ABBA also showed some optimism in their new greatest hits collection, The First Ten Years. However it turned out that a more accurate title might have been The Only Ten Years. It was over. Apparently forever.
The singers, free of fighting for attention at the front of the ABBA stage and fighting for a say in the studio, could go their own way. Agnetha hooked up with Mike Chapman for Wrap Your Arms Around Me, which featured single The Heat Is On, a song that managed to be concurrently ABBA-lite and Blondie-lite. She sounded more like Kate Bush than the crisp Swede we loved.
Frida fared a little better on the Phil Collins’ helmed Something Going On, who’s titular single had a sultry grind to it, and the insistent gated drums you’d hope from a Collins production of that era. The LP sold 1.5m copies to make it the most successful post-ABBA record. Frida managed another album in Shine, which even contained an adequate Bjorn and Benny penned song, Slowly. Then she walked away.
The boys hit the charts again in 1984, but this time behind the scenes, as songwriters for the deeply, deepy uncool (but elegantly crafted) I Know Him So Well, sung by Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson. It was a number one and remains the biggest selling UK Chart single ever by a female duo, but in pop terms ABBA had disappeared by the mid 80s. The Swedish winter had settled in.
It took until early 90s, with a little distance from their 70s heyday, for a reassessment of ABBA. Three events in two years set their reputation in, well, gold. First up (which Andy Bell talks about elsewhere in this magazine) was Erasure’s chart-topping ABBA-esque EP – the first ABBA song to go to number one single since Super Trouper 12 years earlier. Tribute band Bjorn Again, who were themselves picking up steam – and would end up filling an ABBA-shaped hole in many festivals and parties including Glastonbury and Russell Crowe’s wedding – responded with an ABBA-style covers EP of Erasure songs.
The success of ABBA-esque (and to a lesser degree Erasure-ish) readied the ground for what would become one of the biggest albums of all time. ABBA Gold, as the names suggests, applied a new approach to the band’s round-ups – it treated them as precious treasure.
Released into a drought of ABBA – with previous compilations out of print and CD versions of albums conspicuously late to the great vinyl replacement – Gold was the first release after the band’s Polar Music was sold to international conglomerate Polygram. The label knew what it was doing – it starved the market of the dodgy compilations that the mess of international labels were releasing, and put together a classy package – simple and elegant, making sure that the tracklist was flawless.
It’s easy to think from Gold that ABBA have a Midas touch, but even the most loyal fans would admit that their albums can often be a mixed bag, and this greatest of greatest hits picks the real gems. Bjorn admits he wrote “a few stinkers”, with Benny claiming he suggested that the label should put out ABBA Wood to showcase them. Dum Dum Diddle is suggested to take centre stage on the compilation.
There simply isn’t space to list all Gold’s achievements here, but with 5.5m sales in the UK alone, and 30m worldwide, we can assume that you, your parents, the bloke down the road and gran all have a copy. It’s the second best-selling album in the UK, after Queen’s similarly “all killer no filler” Greatest Hits. Gold has spent 1000 weeks in the charts ("Not bad for four old turnips," reckoned Benny).
Suddenly we were all fans, and having a copy was a matter of pride, not a guilty pleasure. Like many musicians – who unlike the critics saw much to love in ABBA’s sheer pop craft – Elvis Costello was a vocal fan, including Gold in his list essential albums for Vanity Fair. Even the music journalists were coming round, with uber-snobs Pitchfork later calling the best of the “definitive example” of the genre.
A year later, More ABBA Gold might have been pushing it a bit, achieving “only” platinum sales, an 18th of the original compilation. It’s still loaded with classics like Eagle and Hot Summer Nights.
In 1994 ABBA started to become part of the cultural conversation, not least from two Australian hit movies, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Muriel’s Wedding. Both had key scenes soundtracked by the Swedes, but Muriel had ABBA as part of her DNA. However, Benny and Bjorn were unsure about signing on, refusing the rights to their music until a change of heart at the start of shooting. Director PJ Hogan revealed that they almost changed the band of Muriel’s obsessions to The Village People, which would make for a very different Classic Pop Special. Five years later ABBA would have their own musical, something that now feels inevitable.
Read the rest of this article in Classic Pop’s special ABBA Issue