THANK YOU for the MUSIC
Mrs Thatcher was in Downing St, Prince Charles was dating a 19-year-old Lady Diana Spencer, and ABBA was enjoying the last of the band’s nine number-one hit records in the UK.
Yet almost 41 years after ABBA’s last hit album Super Trouper topped the charts in November 1980 (The Visitors in 1981 was nowhere near as successful), the enduring appeal of a quartet that embodied all that was fun and exhilarating in pop seems undimmed, as the extraordinary reaction to recent news of their reunion has proved.
Two new dazzling songs have been released already, a full album is due in November and a “cyber theatre” – a new global hub for ABBA fans worldwide – is being built at London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which will put on virtual shows from next May, featuring digital versions of each band member, reunited once again (albeit computer generated).
For while beautiful frontwomen Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid “Frida” Lyngstad were the focus of the band’s success – and were made rich beyond dreams – stardom also brought them a measure of torment and tragedy which their male bandmates, Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, have all but managed
