[24] Agnetha Fältskog (born 5 April 1950 in Jönköping, Sweden) sang with a local dance band (headed by Bernt Enghardt) who sent a demo recording of their music to Karl-Gerhard Lundkvist.

Benny Andersson (born 16 December 1946 in Stockholm, Sweden) became (at age 18) a member of a popular Swedish pop-rock group, the Hep Stars, that performed, among other things, covers of international hits.

As their respective bands began to break up during 1969, Andersson and Ulvaeus teamed up and recorded their first album together in 1970, called Lycka ("Happiness"), which included original songs sung by both men.

Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad (born 15 November 1945 in Bjørkåsen in Ballangen Municipality, Norway) sang from the age of 13 with various dance bands, and worked mainly in a jazz-oriented cabaret style.

Fältskog and Lyngstad added backing vocals on several tracks during June, and the idea of their working together saw them launch a stage act, "Festfolket" (which translates from Swedish to "Party People" and in pronunciation also "engaged couples"), on 1 November 1970 in Gothenburg.

[36] The first signs of foreign success came as a surprise, as the Andersson and Ulvaeus single "She's My Kind of Girl" was released through Epic Records in Japan in March 1972, giving the duo a Top 10 hit.

According to Stig Anderson, "People Need Love" could have been a much bigger American hit, but a small label like Playboy Records did not have the distribution resources to meet the demand for the single from retailers and radio programmers.

[46] The idea for the official logo was made by the German photographer Wolfgang "Bubi" Heilemann [de] on a velvet jumpsuit photo shoot for the teenage magazine Bravo.

"[53] In late 1974, "So Long" was released as a single in the United Kingdom but it received no airplay from Radio 1 and failed to chart in the UK; the only countries in which it was successful were Austria, Sweden and Germany, reaching the top ten in the first two and number 21 in the latter.

Cashbox went as far as saying that "there is a recurrent thread of taste and artistry inherent in Abba's marketing, creativity and presentation that makes it almost embarrassing to critique their efforts",[54] while Creem wrote: "SOS is surrounded on this LP by so many good tunes that the mind boggles.

They opened their much anticipated tour in Oslo, Norway, on 28 January, and mounted a lavishly produced spectacle that included a few scenes from their self-written mini-operetta The Girl with the Golden Hair.

They continued the tour through Western Europe, visiting Gothenburg, Copenhagen, Berlin, Cologne, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Essen, Hanover, and Hamburg and ending with shows in the United Kingdom in Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and two sold-out concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall.

[60] The drop in sales in Australia was felt to be inevitable by industry observers as an "Abba-Fever" that had existed there for almost three years could only last so long as adolescents would naturally begin to move away from a group so deified by both their parents and grandparents.

To escape the media swirl and concentrate on their writing, Andersson and Ulvaeus secretly travelled to Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, where for two weeks they prepared their next album's songs.

The Visitors, ABBA's eighth studio album, showed a songwriting maturity and depth of feeling distinctly lacking from their earlier recordings but still placing the band squarely in the pop genre, with catchy tunes and harmonies.

Andersson and Ulvaeus began collaborating with Tim Rice in early 1983 on writing songs for the musical project Chess, while Fältskog and Lyngstad both concentrated on international solo careers.

As the single "Belle" sold well in France, Cameron Mackintosh wanted to stage an English-language version of the show in London, with the French lyrics translated by David Wood and Don Black; Andersson and Ulvaeus got involved in the project, and contributed with one new song, "I Am the Seeker".

He also played the piano during new recordings of the ABBA songs "Like an Angel Passing Through My Room" with opera singer Anne Sofie von Otter, and "When All Is Said and Done" with Swede Viktoria Tolstoy.

The individual members' endeavours shortly before and after their final public performance coupled with the collapse of both marriages and the lack of significant activity in the following few years after that widely suggested that the group had broken up.

As U2 arrived in Stockholm for a concert in June of that year, the band paid homage to ABBA by inviting Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson to join them on stage for a rendition of "Dancing Queen", playing guitar and keyboards.

In 1994, two Australian cult films caught the attention of the world's media, both focusing on admiration for ABBA: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Muriel's Wedding.

Notable tracks include Go West's "One of Us", Army of Lovers "Hasta Mañana", Information Society's "Lay All Your Love on Me", Erasure's "Take a Chance on Me" (with MC Kinky), and Lyngstad's a cappella duet with the Real Group of "Dancing Queen".

[92][93] In January 2012, Universal Music announced the re-release of ABBA's final album The Visitors, featuring a previously unheard track "From a Twinkling Star to a Passing Angel".

[100] On 27 April 2018, all four original members of ABBA made a joint announcement that they had recorded two new songs, titled "I Still Have Faith in You" and "Don't Shut Me Down", to feature in a TV special set to air later that year.

The TV special was later revealed to be scrapped by 2018, as Andersson and Ulvaeus rejected Fuller's project, and instead partnered with visual effects company Industrial Light and Magic to prepare the ABBAtars for a music video and a concert.

[123] On 29 August, the band officially joined TikTok with a video of Benny Andersson playing "Dancing Queen" on the piano,[124] and media reported on a new album to be announced on 2 September.

ABBA's manager, Stig Anderson, realised the potential of showing a simple video clip on television to publicise a single or album, thereby allowing easier and quicker exposure than a concert tour.

[152][153] In September 2010, band members Andersson and Ulvaeus criticised the right-wing Danish People's Party (DF) for using the ABBA song "Mamma Mia" (with modified lyrics referencing Pia Kjærsgaard) at rallies.

[160] Saturday Night Live featured a sketch that promoted a fictional ABBA album, which took pre-existing songs and reworked their lyrics to reference common Christmas traditions in the United States.

These include:[164][165][166] Studio albums Documentaries often profess to show the "real ABBA" and may employ several methods of legitimising such claims, such as the use of archival documents, testimonies from "music and cultural 'experts'", and interviews with the group members and fans.