4 Rise and Fall
By 1978, Abba were megastars. They built a new state of the art studio in Stockholm, and it was in demand from numerous other bands - Led Zeppelin's In Through the Out Door was recorded there, for example. The single Summer Night City topped the charts, and set the stage for Abba's foray into the disco sound, with the album Voulez-Vous. This release started to mark the beginning of Abba's decline in Europe, while getting them considerably more attention in the US. Hits still came - Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (A Man After Midnight), Voulez-Vous, Chiquitita and I Have a Dream were all taken from this album, but in the light of Punk and New Wave in the UK, many felt that Abba were past their prime and were looking for something new.
Abba toured the US in 1979, with huge audiences, but the US breakthrough was perhaps too little, too late. The next release, Super Trouper ( 1980), again achieved respectable sales but it started to sound as if the group themselves were running out of ideas. It is ironic that this, and the final album, The Visitors ( 1981) show a songwriting maturity and depth of feeling that is distinctly lacking on their earlier recordings.
Despite a feeling that Abba were in decline, the band were still achieving huge audiences into the early 1980s, and might have continued indefinitely if it wasn't for the fact that on a personal level, the married members of the group were falling apart. For a while it was possible to keep personal and professional lives separate, and it was under this arrangement that the last two albums were recorded. However, the songs of the time - such as Winner Takes it All and One Of Us - give a glimpse of the personal difficulties the group's members were facing. In time, it was unsustainable, and the band decided to finally split in 1982. The Visitors was to be the last "proper" album the group recorded, though there have been many compilations, re-releases and a live album put out by the record companies since.
5 Fashion and Videos
Abba were well known for their colourful costumes (the epitome of 1970s fashion), and also for the videos which accompanied some of their biggest hits -- these being among the earliest examples of the genre. All of Abba's videos were directed by Lasse Hallström, who also directed a feature-length film about the group, Abba - The Movie. Abba chose to make them because they preferred perfecting the songs rather than making personal appearances in all the countries where the song was likely to be a hit. Some of these videos became classics. For example, the video of "Knowing Me, Knowing You" was satirised on the BBC comedy show, Not the Nine O'Clock News, as "Super Dooper". The title Knowing Me, Knowing You was also borrowed for a spoof chat show on BBC radio and television, starring Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge, who always entered the studio shouting "Aha!", this being the next word in the lyrics of the original song.
6 Albums
- Ring Ring (1973)
- Waterloo (1974); #28 UK, #145 US
- ABBA (1975); #13 UK, #174 US
- Greatest Hits (1975); #1 UK, #48 US
- Arrival (1976); #1 UK, #20 US
- Abba - The Album (1977); #1 UK, #14 US
- Voulez-Vous (1979); #1 UK, #19 US
- Greatest Hits Vol 2. (1979); #1 UK, #46 US
- Super Trouper (1980); #1 UK, #17 US
- The Visitors (1981); #1 UK, #29 US
- The Singles (1982); #1 UK, #62 US
- Thank You for the Music (1983); #17 UK
- Live (1986)
- Gold - Greatest Hits (1992); #1 UK, #63 US
- More ABBA Gold - More Abba Hits (1993); #13 UK
- The Definitive Collection (2001); #17 UK, #186 US
