History Music / Abba

* MundaneUtility: In "Cassandra", the titular character uses her future-predicting powers to, among other things, know when her ship is going to leave so she can take her time packing.

* {{Jailbait}}: "Does Your Mother Know" is about a guy in a dance club who realizes that the girl flirting with him is (probably) underage. He's still willing to flirt and talk with her, though, but he's careful not to let things get too far.

* LaterInstallmentWeirdness: The group's final album ''The Visitors'' is one of the most infamous (and [[TrueArtIsAngsty acclaimed]]) examples in pop history thanks to directly veering into [[DarkerAndEdgier darker]] and more sullen synthpop territory (to the extent where even the more upbeat songs bore gloomier undertones and musical elements), a style which none of their previous more disco-oriented albums had touched upon. Naturally, while much of the group's previous tone and aesthetic were a victim of [[DeaderThanDisco the infamous disco backlash]] by the time of the album's release in 1981, this caught many of the group's established fans [[UnexpectedlyDarkEpisode off-guard]] and led to its unflattering accolade as the most swapped-in of ABBA's studio albums.

* ''Music/ABBAAlbum'' (1975)

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar:
** In "Summer Night City", Björn sings the lyric "Walking in the moonlight, love-making in a park" in the chorus. As the song progresses, it sounds more and more like [[spoiler:"Fucking in the moonlight"]]. Years later, Björn admitted that maybe he had dropped the f-bomb once or twice towards the end of the song.
** "Take A Chance On Me" is about a crazy stalker, but due to the cheerful music, most people don't realise it.
** "Move On" is a song trying to deter someone from committing suicide.
** "Two For The Price Of One" has the man feeling suicidal due to his mundane life, and hiring prostitutes, a fact that is even more evident in its demo version.
** "The Piper", "The Visitors" and "Soldiers" all deal with the Cold War. "The Piper" is about the influence dictators have, "The Visitors" is about a political dissident being tracked down, and "Soldiers" is about how foreign armies are brainwashed into fighting for the wrong cause. These facts went over the heads of pretty much everyone until Björn brought them up in interviews.
** "One Man, One Woman": An uplifting and joyous song with a cheerful chorus - a story of a woman who lives in a heavily abusive relationship and cannot escape from it, forgiving her man every time in the name of love 'worth the pain and the suffering'.

* GratuitousFrench: The chorus of "Voulez-Vous" features the line "La question c'est voulez vous..." [[note]]Translated as "The question is 'Do you want...' "?[[/note]]
* GratuitousSpanish: "Fernando", "Chiquitita", "Hasta Mañana", and "Andante Andante" run on this trope.

** GratuitousFrench: The chorus of "Voulez-Vous" features the line "La question c'est voulez vous..." [[note]]Translated as "The question is 'Do you want...' "?[[/note]]
** GratuitousSpanish:
*** "Fernando", "Chiquitita", "Hasta Mañana", and "Andante Andante" run on this trope.
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlC3otqX8bc "Estoy Soñando"]], aka "I Have a Dream"
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YihxpsmH3cQ "Felicidad"]], aka "Happy New Year"
*** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qmzmD4POMk "No Hay A Quien Culpar"]], aka "When All Is Said and Done"
*** An entire album of them singing in Spanish, produced for the South American market, was released in 1980.

* TookALevelInBadass: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znB8OlFgCSM Just watch]]

* TheEighties: While they disbanded relatively early in the decade (1982), their last music videos were already showing what would become the fashion trends of the decade ''hard''. The [[https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-YyhufIQ74Z4/VL-gDdBKSQI/AAAAAAAAJT8/eZw01pmchBQ/s1536/Photo%25252020150121124809359.jpg girls']] [[https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/--dYDXp62jPg/VL86bVSHmyI/AAAAAAAAJS0/6tSvZP6G3ds/s1738/Photo%25252020150121053433685.jpg outfits]] for the music video of "Head Over Heels" were worthy of ''Series/{{Dynasty}}'', while the band's [[https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1apys6CkD38/SpGHmew3BlI/AAAAAAAABU4/-mMbvyDNIdU/s1600/Under+Attack+video.jpg clothing]] on their final video, "Under Attack", had them looking like they could be extras from ''Series/MiamiVice''.

* YourCheatingHeart: Subverted in "Crazy World". Björn thinks his lover is cheating on him and confronts her about it, but then the girl calms him down and tells her that it's only her brother who has come to stay.

* HenpeckedHus* GreatestHitsAlbum: Several, actually, the most famous being ''ABBA Gold''.band: Oddly enough, Björn played this as Frida's exhausted boyfriend in the "Head Over Heels" video. He reluctantly follows Frida around on her shopping trip and is forced to carry her bags.

* GreatestHitsAlbum: Several, actually, the most famous being ''ABBA Gold''.

* HenpeckedHusband: Oddly enough, Björn played this as Frida's exhausted boyfriend in the "Head Over Heels" video. He reluctantly follows Frida around on her shopping trip and is forced to carry her bags.

* GenderEqualEnsemble

* GratuitousFrench: The chorus of "Voulez-Vous" features the line "La question c'est voulez vous..." [[note]]Translated as "The question is 'Do you want...' "?[[/note]]
* GratuitousSpanish:
** "Fernando", "Chiquitita", "Hasta Mañana", and "Andante Andante" run on this trope.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlC3otqX8bc "Estoy Soñando"]], aka "I Have a Dream"
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YihxpsmH3cQ "Felicidad"]], aka "Happy New Year"
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qmzmD4POMk "No Hay A Quien Culpar"]], aka "When All Is Said and Done"
** An entire album of them singing in Spanish, produced for the South American market, was released in 1980.

ABBA was a [[UsefulNotes/{{Sweden}} Swedish]] pop quartet of TheSeventies and early [[TheEighties '80s]] composed of Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad.

** Early song "Santa Rosa" has a few lines which indicate Björn's English wasn't quite up to scratch at this point. "Cause I have found no other place where I would stay" and "How I regret the day when I set up to go". "How I wish to see the old house where I used to live" is technically correct but is not something a native English speaker would say. Of course the other novelty about this song is that whichever Santa Rosa he's referring to (there are quite a few places with the name around the world), it's nowhere near Stockholm.

* UnkemptBeauty: Frida, compared to Agnetha who looks plain and dowdy without makeup.

ABBA never officially broke up - and despite the two divorces, all four members remained friends - but by 1983 they had essentially dissolved. The former members would go on to have mixed careers and, despite occasional public appearances together, have never reformed despite a reported offer in 2000 of $1,000,000,000 (yes, you read that right, that's a ''billion dollars'') to do a reunion tour consisting of 100 concerts. It wasn't until [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/06/abba-sing-together-for-first-time-in-more-than-30-years/ June 2016]] that Frida and Agnetha reunited to perform one song ("The Way Old Friends Do") at a party to celebrate Benny and Björn's fifty years of friendship. In 2018, the band stunned fans with the announcement that [[https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/apr/27/abba-announce-first-new-songs-for-35-years they reunited]] for the recording of two new songs, "I Still Have Faith In You" and "Don't Shut Me Down", which are planned to be released in 2020; in the meantime, the two songs expanded to five.

* TheSeventies: They were active during most of the decade, and their signature look represents a good look at the fashion trends of the time. Not to mention that they are sometimes referred to as a {{Disco}} band, even though they only had one album that prominently featured said genre (''Music/VoulezVous'').

* BreakUpSong: Many.

* ''Theatre/MammaMia'' (1999) [written by Björn and Benny, with Catherine Johnson]
** The 2008 film adaptation
** ''Film/MammaMiaHereWeGoAgain'', the 2018 sequel to the film

ABBA never officially broke up - and despite the two divorces, all four members remained friends - but by 1983 they had essentially dissolved. The former members would go on to have mixed careers and, despite occasional public appearances together, have never reformed despite a reported offer in 2000 of $1,000,000,000 (yes, you read that right, that's a ''billion dollars'') to do a reunion tour consisting of 100 concerts. It wasn't until [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/06/abba-sing-together-for-first-time-in-more-than-30-years/ June 2016]] that Frida and Agnetha reunited to perform one song ("The Way Old Friends Do") at a party to celebrate Benny and Björn's fifty years of friendship. In 2018, the band stunned fans [[https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/apr/27/abba-announce-first-new-songs-for-35-years with the announcement]] that they reunited for the recording of two new songs, "I Still Have Faith In You" and "Don't Shut Me Down", which are planned to be released in 2020.

This was not, however, the end of ABBA in popular culture. Their music remained popular, selling steadily, and formed the background for the 1994 Australian CultClassic ''Film/MurielsWedding'' - ABBA has always been especially huge in the LandDownUnder. More directly, Benny and Björn collaborated three times in the realm of musical theater. First with lyricist Creator/TimRice on ''{{Theatre/Chess}}'', and later in the creation of ''Theatre/MammaMia'', a stage musical [[JukeboxMusical based around ABBA songs]]. The musical, opening first in 1999 in London and in New York in 2001 has proved enormously popular with global audiences. In 2008 a movie version was released staring Creator/MerylStreep, Creator/PierceBrosnan and [[Creator/AmandaSeyfried Amanda Seyfried]] (who, at 22, was born well after the group dissolved). That film was such a smash hit that it made $100+ million ''before'' it opened in North America, and later spawned an original theatrical sequel, ''Film/MammaMiaHereWeGoAgain'', which released in 2018. Their third stage musical is called "[[Literature/TheEmigrants Kristina from Duvemåla]]" (or just "Kristina" for short) and is based on the literary epic by Vilhelm Moberg about a group of people who emigrate from Sweden to America in the mid-19th century. The musical was a massive success in Sweden and remains one of the most popular musicals of all time there. It's been translated into English but has not been performed other than in concert. Many fans of the original Swedish version are highly critical of the English translation, citing a huge decrease in the quality of the lyrics, which might have played a role in the show not being brought properly to an English-speaking stage.

This was not, however, the end of ABBA in popular culture. Their music remained popular, selling steadily, and formed the background for the 1994 Australian CultClassic ''Film/MurielsWedding'' - ABBA has always been especially huge in the LandDownUnder. More directly, Benny and Björn collaborated three times in the realm of musical theater. First with lyricist Creator/TimRice on ''{{Theatre/Chess}}'', and later in the creation of ''Theatre/MammaMia'', a stage musical [[JukeboxMusical based around ABBA songs]]. The musical, opening first in 1999 in London and in New York in 2001 has proved enormously popular with global audiences. In 2008 a movie version was released staring Creator/MerylStreep, Creator/PierceBrosnan and [[Creator/AmandaSeyfried Amanda Seyfried]] (who, at 22, was born well after the group dissolved). That film was such a smash hit that it made $100+ million ''before'' it opened in North America. Their third stage musical is called "[[Literature/TheEmigrants Kristina from Duvemåla]]" (or just "Kristina" for short) and is based on the literary epic by Vilhelm Moberg about a group of people who emigrate from Sweden to America in the mid-19th century. The musical was a massive success in Sweden and remains one of the most popular musicals of all time there. It's been translated into English but has not been performed other than in concert. Many fans of the original Swedish version are highly critical of the English translation, citing a huge decrease in the quality of the lyrics, which might have played a role in the show not being brought properly to an English-speaking stage.

* TheSixties: An odd example in that, while the band wasn't formed until 1972, their early imput (especially pre-''Music/{{Waterloo|Album}}'') was very reminiscent of the era; songs such as "People Need Love" and "He Is Your Brother" wouldn't have sounded out of place during the Summer of Love. Not to mention [[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ef/58/f4/ef58f44baebcd5cdc6a988f20cac71cc.jpg their]] [[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vzb58DCn0h8/T0vX-HEfvSI/AAAAAAAAA5I/uJ2BbKiJ1ys/s1600/abba72.jpg appearance]] during that time.

* TheEighties: While they disbanded relatively early in the decade (1982), their last music videos were already showing what would become the fashion trends of the decade ''hard''. Their [[https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1apys6CkD38/SpGHmew3BlI/AAAAAAAABU4/-mMbvyDNIdU/s1600/Under+Attack+video.jpg clothing]] on their final video, "Under Attack", had them looking like they could be extras from ''Series/MiamiVice''.

* ''Theatre/{{Chess}}'' (1984) [written by Björn and Benny, with Creator/TimRice]
* ''Theatre/MammaMia'' (1999) [written by Björn and Benny, with Catherine Johnson]
* ''Film/TedForKarlekensSkull'' (2018) [{{Biopic}} of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Gärdestad Ted Gärdestad]], with ABBA appearing in supporting roles]

* ''Theatre/{{Chess}}'' (1984) [Bjorn and Benny, with Creator/TimRice]
* ''Theatre/MammaMia'' (1999) [Bjorn and Benny, with Catherine Johnson]

* TheEighties: While they disbanded relatively early in the decade (1982), their last music videos were already showing what would become the fashion trends of the decade ''hard''. Their final video, "Under Attack", had them [[https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1apys6CkD38/SpGHmew3BlI/AAAAAAAABU4/-mMbvyDNIdU/s1600/Under+Attack+video.jpg looking like they could be extras]] from ''Series/MiamiVice''.

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* EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses: A RealLife RagsToRoyalty example. Since 1992, Frida has been formally styled Princess Anni-Frid of Reuss, due to her marriage to a (now deceased) German prince. (She reportedly doesn't particularly like being addressed by her royal title, though.) She's also a close friend of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden (she [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dOPCcCOYus reprised "Dancing Queen"]] for the Queen's 50th birthday gala in 1993, backed by the Swedish vocal jazz / {{ACappella}} ensemble The Real Group), and according to at least one source is a lady-in-waiting of the Queen. For the sake of hilarity, you can think of the rest of ABBA as Frida's "musical mice".

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