In 2010, the 2008 version of the CD was re-released as a “special edition” containing a DVD with videos of the tracks and some bonus clips. It sounds like Faltskog is singing the first verse from the bottom of a well; her loneliness and desperation are so thick, you can almost reach out and touch them. The UK saw a 30th Anniversary Edition released in 2004 with a gold-coloured sleeve cover with black writing, rather than the normal black sleeve with gold writing. It’s a fascinating story, yet it still doesn’t explain why millions of people around the world were ready to embrace ABBA once more with feeling. This article was updated with a correction: Abba won the Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo in 1974, not 1971.

The 1992 compilation rounded up all of the Swedish pop band’s international smashes into a refined package with surprising emotional range. Music critic Elisabeth Vincentelli ( New York Post; Time Out New York) credits the album for a revival of critical interest in ABBA's music after ten years of neglect following the band's 1982 break-up. Having formed in 1972, at the height of their fame in the mid-1970s six out of seven singles in a row reached No 1 in the UK: Fernando, Mamma Mia, Dancing Queen, Knowing Me Knowing You, Name of the Game and Take a Chance on Me. million copies, [2] Gold: Greatest Hits is the second-highest selling album of all time in the United Kingdom, [3] after Queen's Greatest Hits. debuted in 1999, and recently reopened in London’s West End, reintroduced the group’s hits to new generations.In the years since, Fältskog released 12 solo albums, most recently A in 2013; Lyngstad released three albums and made occasional one-off recordings.

In the decade since ABBA’s collapse, CDs had become the dominant form of physical media and were accelerating toward their turn-of-the-century peak. Robyn became one of this decade’s great pop heroes by pinning down this same sad-ecstatic balance and welding it to modern, muscular production. And if the commercial potential of ABBA’s music wasn’t already evident, it became impossible to ignore in mid-1992 when Erasure’s cover EP Abba-esque topped the charts across the UK and continental Europe. McGregor said: “Imagine: growing up in the north of England in the 70s and learning to ballroom, Latin and disco dance to the incredible songs of Abba. Take a Chance on Me” is best remembered for its a cappella opening buoyant chorus, but its verses are pure Swedish honky-tonk; I hear them and think of Daft Punk’s “ Fragments of Time,” a hidden jam on Random Access Memories that’s built on a warm country boogie.

Their ongoing popularity has meant that their 1992 greatest hits collection, Abba Gold, is the longest-running album in the UK album chart. It’s going to be a busy year for ABBA fans with a singles vinyl box coming up later in the spring and the autumn promising a Live At Wembley release.

It capitalized on a simmering, subcultural interest in ABBA’s work and sparked a full-blown revival, one that culminated in Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan belting and grunting their way through “S.Over time, those greatest hits albums—purchased as a package, repeated incessantly on the radio—formalized each act’s conventionally-accepted canon and, in turn, cemented their enduring public personas.