ABBA's self-titled third album was the one that really broke the group on a worldwide basis. The Eurovision Song Contest winner "Waterloo" had been a major international hit and "Honey, Honey" a more modest one, but ABBA was still an exotic novelty to most of those outside Scandinavia until the release of ABBA in the spring of 1975. "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do," a schmaltzy tribute to the sound of '50s orchestra leader Billy Vaughn, seemed an unlikely first single, and indeed it barely scraped into the Top 40 in the U.K. But in Australia, it topped the charts, causing the Australian record company to pull its own second single, "Mamma Mia," off the album.
The 2008 nine-disc box Albums is neither the first ABBA multi-disc set nor the first time the pop group's albums have been collected and housed in a box set, but it is the first time a set of their complete recordings has been widely disseminated (such are the perks of being a companion to an international blockbuster) and it's the best of the lot, containing all eight of the group's albums (for the record: Ring Ring, Waterloo, ABBA, Arrival, The Album, Voulez-Vous, Super Trouper, The Visitors), plus a 17-track rarities disc that rounds up non-LP singles (including "Fernando" and "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)"), songs sung in Swedish, and plain oddities like a medley of the American folk songs "Pick a Bale of Cotton," "On Top of Old Smokey," and "Midnight Special."
ABBA - Swedish pop group, active from 1972 until 1982; though several companies worldwide continued to release their songs after they had disbanded in the December of '82. Sales figures for the group vary widely, with the official estimate at 375 million records worldwide, but this is not an audited figure and is disputed…
"Gold: Greatest Hits" is a compilation album of recordings by Swedish pop group ABBA. Since 1992, Gold has been released several times, most notably in 2008 to coincide with the release of the film Mamma Mia! and most recently in 2014 to mark the group's 40th Anniversary of winning the Eurovision Song Contest…
This interesting compilation offers an introduction to the 1970s pop superstars from Sweden. Best 1000 collects a smattering of the quartet's hits, including "Waterloo" and "S.O.S.," along with unearthing forgotten tracks like "When I Kissed The Teacher." ABBA is a Swedish pop supergroup formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The group's name is an acronym of the first letters of their first names. They became one of the most commercially successful acts in the history of popular music, topping the charts worldwide from 1974 to 1982. ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest 1974, giving Sweden its first triumph in the contest. They are the most successful group to have taken part in the competition. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.