The Greatest Artist Ever

ABBA's success subsequently opened the doors for many other European acts. Their lasting legacy is the legitimisation of the Swedish music industry as a mainstream player (Sweden is considered by many as the third greatest exporter of music, following the US and the UK). In November 2006 plans for an ABBA museum in Stockholm were announced. The idea has the backing of the band and the museum is expected to open in 2008.^[8]

ABBA's success in the United States

Contrary to a widespread notion, ABBA did achieve a major success in the United States. During their active career, from 1974 to 1982 fourteen of their singles reached Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and on Cashbox singles chart, ten of them reached Top 20 and four of them placed in Top 10 on both charts, with "Dancing Queen" peaking at No.1 also on both charts. While Fernando and SOS didn't break Top 10 on Billboard Hot 100 chart, they reached Top 10 on Cashbox ("Fernando) and Record World ('SOS") singles charts.

The group also had twelve Top 20 singles on Billboard Adult Contemporary chart with two of them, Fernando and The Winner Takes It All, reaching No.1. "Lay All Your Love On Me" was ABBA's fourth No.1 single on Billboard charts topping its Hot Dance Club Play chart. "Dancing Queen" and "Take A Chance On Me" singles were certified gold (more than 1 million copies sold) by RIAA.

Nine ABBA albums made its way into the Top 100 on Billboard 200 album chart with seven of them getting into the Top 50. Four of those albums reached Top 20 with ABBA The Album at No.14 being the highest position. Five albums received RIAA gold (more than 500,000 copies sold) certification, and three acquired platinum (more than 1 million copies sold) status. ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits collection released in the US in 1993 became a 6-time platinum bestseller and reached No.7 on Billboard Top Pop Catalog Albums chart.

• In 1978 The Album ABBA were honored with the Dutch music prize Edison Award (equivalent of Grammy Award).
• In 1980 ABBA received a Georgie Award from the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA) as The Best Vocal Group of the Year.
• In 1980 'Super Trouper' was recognized by Royal Swedish Academy of Music and magazine Musikrevy as the "Best Album Recorded and Produced in Sweden".
• In 1982 ABBA received a Golden Gramophone Award from Germany's recording company Deutsche Grammophon "in recognition of the outstanding contribution made by ABBA to popular music worldwide". Usually, the award was bestowed upon only classical musicians.
• In 1982 ABBA were honoured at home by the prestigious music prize Spelmannen awarded by the jury that included members of Swedish Academy and Royal Swedish Academy of Music. To this day ABBA remain the only pop/rock musicians who ever received this award.
• In 1992 ABBA received an Honorary Grammis Award.
• In 1993 ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits brought ABBA a World Music Award as the Best Selling Scandinavian Artist of the Year.
• In 2000 ABBA won the Rockbjörnen Swedish Artist of the Century Award.
• ABBA was inducted into Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2002.^[9]
• ABBA have two postage stamps honoring their achievements to Swedish music industry. The Swedish Postal Service released these in 1983 and 2000.
• Ulvaeus and Andersson were recognised in 2001 with a Special International Ivor Novello Award. They also received the Music Export Prize from the Swedish Government and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Swedish Music Publishers Association (SMFF).
• Mamma Mia! was nominated for a Broadway Tony Award as Best Musical in 2002.
• In 2002, Andersson has been given an honorary professorship by the Swedish Government for his "ability to create high-class music reaching people around the world".
• In 2003 ABBA were nominated into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but failed to get inducted.
• On April 6, 2004 three former ABBA members (Ulvaeus, Andersson and Lyngstad) showed up together in London for the 30th anniversary of their Eurovision Song Contest win in 1974, appearing on stage after the fifth anniversary performance of Mamma Mia!. While on stage, they were presented an award from Universal Music and Polar Music for achieving record sales of 360 million sales wordwide between 1974 and 2004.
• On October 22, 2005, during the celebration show for the 50th anniversary of the Eurovision Song Contest, Congratulations (Eurovision), held in Copenhagen, Denmark, Waterloo was voted the best Eurovision song in the history of the contest, beating off stiff competition from the likes of Celine Dion, Helena Paparizou, Cliff Richard and Johnny Logan. Despite pre-show rumours to the contrary, no band member was present to accept the accolade. They were the only one of the fifteen nominated acts from which no member appeared on-stage.
• In 2005 the DVD version of the TV special ABBA in Concert was nominated for Grammis.
• In 2006 ABBA: The Movie won Grammis as the Best Music DVD.^[10]
• In 2008 An ABBA interactive Museum will be opened in Stockholm featuring original outfits and instruments used by the group, handwritten song lyrics, a display of different awards. The museum will also feature a studio where visitors can record their own ABBA songs.

• Fältskog and Lyngstad are joint #70 on VH1's Greatest Women of Rock and Roll.

Fashion and videos

ABBA was widely noted for the colourful and trend-setting costumes its members wore. The videos which accompanied some of their biggest hits are often cited as being among the earliest examples of the genre. Though The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Who, Bob Dylan and others had made several videos, making promotional videos still hadn't become the industry standard by the early-to-mid 1970s.^{[citation needed]} Most of ABBA's videos (and ABBA - The Movie) were directed by Lasse Hallström who would later direct the films My Life as a Dog, The Cider House Rules and Chocolat.

ABBA made videos because their songs were hits in so many different countries and personal appearances weren't always possible. This was also an effort to minimise travelling, particularly to countries that would have required extremely long flights. Fältskog and Ulvaeus had two young children, and Fältskog, who was also afraid of flying, was very reluctant to leave her children for such a long time. ABBA's manager Stig Anderson realised the potential of showing a simple video clip on television to publicise a single or album, thereby allowing easier and quicker exposure than a concert tour. Some of these videos became classics because of the 1970s era costumes and early video effects, such as the grouping of the band members in different combinations of pairs, overlapping one singer's profile with the other's full face, and the contrasting of one member against another. Nowadays, most of their videos can be seen on the DVDs ABBA Gold and The Definitive Collection.

Parodies and references to ABBA in the media

• Several ABBA videos were spoofed by others: The video "Super Trouper" was satirised on the BBC comedy show Not the Nine O'Clock News as "Supa Dupa." It contained the memorable and amusing line "one of us is ugly, one of us is cute, one of us you'd like to see in her birthday suit", these words alluding to the attractions of the two female vocalists - though for many the 'contest' was not as clear cut as this indicates, with many preferring Lyngstad's darkness (in style and image as well as voice) to Fältskog's blonde image.
• The title Knowing Me, Knowing You was also borrowed for a spoof chat show on BBC starring Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge who always entered the studio shouting "Aha!" (an exclamation in the lyrics). UK comedy duo French and Saunders parodied ABBA with their song "C'est La Vie", an homage to "The Winner Takes it All." Erasure paid homage to the ABBA video style with their video for "Take a Chance on Me."
• In The Angry Beavers episode "Eurobeavers", there is a Swedish europop band known as Babba, consisting of sheep.
• In Pinky and the Brain there is a Swedish group named BAAB.
• Aus TV series Fast Forward sent-up ABBA during their second series (1990).
• The antagonist of the Working Designs SEGA CD and Playstation LUNAR games, Ghaleon, exists in a far future time and has a secret obsession with ABBA.
• Malcolm in the Middle featured the characters singing/dancing to Fernando and Take A Chance On Me in two seasons of the show.
• ABBA are also featured on the successful radio rugby league program The Continuous Call Team through send-ups of "Dancing Queen", "Ring Ring" and "Waterloo". One of the members - Darryl Brohman (also known as "The Big Maaan") - happens to be a huge ABBA fan. He even went to such extremes to record one of their songs just to give himself a wrap - "Mamma Mia" (retitled "Don't Pick On Me-a").
• The sound track of the successful Australian film Muriel's Wedding (1994) prominently featured ABBA songs: The two female leads lip sync "Waterloo" and the wedding scene is scored to an orchestral rendition of "Dancing Queen". The movie also features "Mamma Mia", "Fernando" and "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do".
• Another 1994 Australian film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert features a performance of Mamma Mia! by two drag queens, furthering ABBA's status as a gay icon.
• In the film Johnny English, the title character (Rowan Atkinson) is discreetly characterized as an ABBA fan. He sings "Thank You for The Music", and lip-syncs to "Does Your Mother Know" in front of a mirror.
• The music of ABBA appeared prominently in several US TV shows, including the Simpsons (Waterloo) and American Dad (Mamma Mia)

ABBA's influence on other musicians

• The hit song "Bring Me Edelweiss" (1989) by Edelweiss features the tune and some lyrics from "S.O.S". This caused some controversy between Ulvaeus and Andersson, and manager Stig - Stig had granted approval to use the song without consulting the others.^{[citation needed]}
• The ABBA tribute band Björn Again became so successful that as of 2004 there were five casts of Björn Again performing in various parts of the world. The original Björn Again had been touring for 15 years, longer than the original group.
• Techno and house remakes of many original ABBA hits were released under the name Abbacadabra.
• Elvis Costello included three lines from Dancing Queen in the lyrics of the title track of his 2002 album When I Was Cruel.
• While on their Zoo TV Tour in 1992, U2 performed Dancing Queen. During one of their two concerts in Stockholm, they were joined onstage for this song by Ulvaeus and Andersson, who played guitar and keyboard respectively.
• The Fugees sampled ABBA's "The Name Of The Game" for their contribution to the 1996 When We Were Kings soundtrack, Rumble in the Jungle. It was the first time ABBA ever gave permission for one of their songs to be sampled.
• Madonna sampled the group's Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) in her 2005 single Hung Up (only the second time ABBA gave permission for sampling). She subsequently honoured them during the finale of her Confessions Tour (2006) when she donned an outfit based on Fältskog's and Lyngstad's costumes from Abba's 1979 world tour, and a sequined cape emblazoned with the legend Dancing Queen. Abba's ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits album was sold alongside her own merchandise during the tour.
• There is a heavy metal tribute album to ABBA entitled "A Tribute To Abba" featuring prominent Swedish metal bands such Therion and Tad Morose. A number of ABBA hits are performed in the style of heavy metal.
• Refer also List of artists who have covered ABBA songs

Trivia

• While selling their music into Russia during the late 1970s, ABBA was paid in oil commodities because of an embargo on the ruble.^[11]
• In 1981, ABBA sponsored the ATS Formula One racing team, for whom Slim Borgudd, a former drummer who appeared on some ABBA recordings, was a driver.^[12]
• As of 2006 ABBA's 1976 hit single "Fernando" still held the record for the most weeks spent at number one in Australia (15 weeks) (along with The Beatles' "Hey Jude").^[13]This was in the Charts of the Australian State of New South Wales. However, in the Australian National Chart, 'Fernando' was Number 1 for 14 Weeks, & 'Hey Jude', was 15 Weeks at Number 1 - as it was in the NSW's Chart.
• In 1975, "SOS" became the first song with a palindromic title recorded by a group with a palindromic name to hit the pop charts.^[14]
• On 4 November 2006, Bjorn Ulvaeus appeared on the ITV show The X Factor, and mentored the acts throughout the week, who were singing some of ABBA's best known songs that Saturday night.