ABBA Best-Selling Songs That Made Them Legends

About ABBA's Best-Selling Songs

ABBA's best-selling songs carried four Swedes from a European song contest in 1974 to record players and radios around the world. Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, known to fans as Frida, turned out hit after hit through the late 1970s, most of them written by Björn and Benny and recorded in Stockholm.

This episode counts down ten of their biggest records. The order is the episode's own, not an official sales ranking. Each story below was checked against chart records.

The Countdown: ABBA's Top 10 Best-Selling Songs

#10: Dancing Queen — ABBA (1976)

Before it had a single word, this song was a backing track with the working title "Boogaloo." Recording began on August 4, 1975. Benny took a tape of the track home and played it for Frida, who reportedly started to cry. She later said she simply found the song so beautiful.

Its first live performance in Sweden came on June 18, 1976, at a gala honoring King Carl XVI Gustaf and Silvia Sommerlath on the eve of their wedding. The song went to number one in Britain and more than a dozen other countries, and became ABBA's only number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

#9: Mamma Mia — ABBA (1975)

Nobody planned for this song to be a hit. It was the last track recorded for the album ABBA, with the backing track laid down on March 12, 1975, at Metronome Studio in Stockholm. That famous ticking opening is a marimba. According to biographer Carl Magnus Palm, Benny found the instrument in the studio and added it at the last minute.

It was not meant to be a single, but ABBA's Australian label asked for it. Released there in August 1975, it spent ten weeks at number one. In January 1976 it topped the UK chart, ABBA's first British number one since "Waterloo." In America it peaked at number 32.

#8: Waterloo — ABBA (1974)

A year earlier, things had not gone their way. In February 1973, their song "Ring Ring" placed only third in Sweden's selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. They came back with a new song: music by Benny and Björn, words by Stig Anderson, borrowing Napoleon's famous defeat as a picture of giving in to love.

Engineer Michael B. Tretow gave it a thick, layered sound inspired by Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound." On April 6, 1974, at the Brighton Dome in England, conductor Sven-Olof Walldoff led the orchestra dressed as Napoleon himself. "Waterloo" won with 24 points, six ahead of Italy. It was Sweden's first Eurovision win.

It reached number one in Britain and number six on the Hot 100. In 2005 it was voted the best song in Eurovision history.

#7: Take a Chance on Me — ABBA (1978)

Björn Ulvaeus was a keen runner, and while jogging he would repeat a clipped little rhythm to keep his pace. That sound grew into the phrase "take a chance" and, eventually, the chorus. The song's working title was "Billy Boy."

Released in January 1978, it became the group's seventh British number one, also topped the charts in Austria, Belgium and Ireland, and reached number three in the United States. A plain request for one more chance needs no translation.

#6: Fernando — ABBA (1976)

The first "Fernando" was a Swedish song sung by Frida alone. She recorded it for her 1975 solo album Frida ensam, with Swedish words by Stig Anderson about comforting a man who has lost his great love.

For ABBA's version, Björn wrote new English words about two aging veterans of the Mexican Revolution remembering a battle they fought together. It went to number one in Britain, France, West Germany and several other countries. In Australia it held number one for 14 weeks, and before 1997 it was the best-selling single in Australian history. In America it reached number 13.

#5: The Winner Takes It All — ABBA (1980)

The demo carried a different name, "The Story of My Life." By the time Agnetha stepped up to sing the finished song, her marriage to Björn, who wrote the words, had ended. Many listeners assumed the song told their story.

Björn has said the song grew out of the experience of a divorce, "but it's fiction." He has also said that neither he nor Agnetha came out of their divorce a winner.

Released in July 1980, it became ABBA's eighth British number one. In America it reached number eight and spent 26 weeks on the Hot 100, longer than any other ABBA single.

#4: Money, Money, Money — ABBA (1976)

Released on November 1, 1976, as the second single from Arrival, this one stepped away from the dance floor. Frida sang lead on a theatrical, music-hall style tune about a woman who works all day and still cannot get ahead.

The video was inspired by the film Cabaret, with Frida in a hat in the style of the 1920s. The song topped the charts in Australia, where it was ABBA's sixth number one in a row, and in France, West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Mexico and New Zealand.

Britain took it to number three. In the United States it stalled at number 56, a reminder that ABBA's success was never evenly spread.

Why ABBA's Songs Still Feel So Personal

Look at this list and a pattern appears. Many of ABBA's brightest records hide something sad: a veteran's memories in "Fernando," a breakup in "Knowing Me, Knowing You," loneliness under the spotlight in "Super Trouper."

Critics often dismissed the group as lightweight. Listeners never did.

That mix of joy and heartache, along with one song that still earns money for children decades later, is why ABBA's best-selling songs are still played at weddings, parties and family gatherings today.

Which ABBA song takes you right back, and who were you with the first time you heard it?

Sources and Further Reading

• Dancing Queen (Wikipedia)
• Waterloo (Wikipedia)
• Chiquitita (Wikipedia)
• Knowing Me, Knowing You: three decades of heartache (ABBA official site)
• Fernando (Wikipedia)