With a string of chart-topping hits including Dancing Queen, Waterloo and Mamma Mia, they remain one of pop music’s most enduring bands.
And today ABBA were reunited as they were honoured with a prestigious knighthood in their home country of Sweden.
More than 40 years since their last performance, Agnetha Faltskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad were awarded the royal Order of Vasa as ‘Commander of the First Class’ for ‘very outstanding efforts in Swedish and international music life’. The first time in 50 years that the first Order of the Vasa was handed out.
The order, which is given in recognition of personal efforts for Sweden, as well as the successful performance of public duties, had been dormant until late 2022, when it was reactivated after regulations opened the Royal Orders to Swedish citizens again.
ABBA’s Eurovision victory in 1974 turned the band into a pop juggernaut. This year, the band is celebrating 50 years since their Eurovision win, which set their successful music career in motion.
The group’s melodic disco pop has sold around 400million records worldwide while the hit stage musical ‘Mamma Mia!’ based on their songs is now 25 years old and has spawned two Hollywood movies starring Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth.
Meanwhile, the ABBA Voyage concert opened in London in 2022, an immersive experience with ‘Abbatars’, or augmented reality versions of the band, performing their greatest hits on stage.
The name ABBA is an acronym of the members’ first names: Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
Reunited: Pop quartet Abba pose outside the Royal Palace in Stockholm before receiving Royal Vasa Order from Swedish king and queen for their contribution to the country’s cultural scene
Abba pictured together in the grounds of the Royal Palace in Sweden before collecting knighthoods
Agnetha Fältskog arriving at the Royal Palace in Stockholm to receive the Vasa Order from King Carl XVI Gustaf on Friday
The order is given in recognition of personal efforts for Sweden, as well as the successful performance of public duties
This was the first time in 50 years that the first Order of the Vasa was handed out
Abba stand alongside eachother as they are awarded the Royal Vasa Order by the Swedish monarch
The Royal Order of Vasa was awarded to a total of 13 Swedes, which included two 2023 Nobel Prize winners: French-Swedish physicist Anne L’Huillier, and Svante Pääbo, who won the coveted award in physics and medicine
This year, the band is celebrating 50 years since their Eurovision win, which set their successful music career in motion
Iconic music group Abba is photographed collecting their knighthoods
The four members of Abba music group are seen smiling after collecting their knighthoods today at the Royal Palace in Stockholm
Earlier this year, candidates were nominated by the public and the Swedish government, with King Carl XVI Gustaf approving the nominees that included the quartet
King Carl XVI Gustaf and queen Silvia award the Royal Order of Vasa to Abba member Björn Ulvaeus at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on Friday
Taken in 1974 in Stockholm, picture shows music group Abba posing after winning the Eurovision song contest with their song ‘Waterloo’, which placed their music on the global stage
Earlier this year, candidates were nominated by the public and the Swedish government, with King Carl XVI Gustaf approving the nominees that included the Abba quartet.
The monarch handed out orders to ’13 exceptional Swedes,’ including two 2023 Nobel Prize winners: French-Swedish physicist Anne L’Huillier, and Svante Pääbo, who won the coveted award in physics and medicine.
The ceremony took place at the Royal Palace in Stockholm.
Throughout the majority of its existence, the band was made up of the two married couples of Fältskog and Ulvaeus, and Andersson and Lyngstad.
After the former couple announced they were getting divorced in January 1979, Abba fans were left reeling. While both insisted the divorce was amicable and said fans should not worry, Björn turned up with a new girlfriend – TV presenter Lena Kallersjo – just ‘days’ after they separated.
However, Agnetha later said she needed counselling after the divorce left her feeling ‘mangled’.
Two years later, in 1981, Björn married Lena Kallersjo – just six months after being granted a divorce from Agnetha – and he had another two children with his second wife. The pair divorced in 2022 after 41 years and two children together.
ABBA: Agnetha Fältskog (front left), Björn Ulvaeus (back right), Benny Andersson (left), and Anni-Frid Lyngstad (front right)
Chart-toppers: Agnetha with husband Bjorn, left, and Abba bandmates Anni-Frid and Benny, right, in 1975
Reclusive: Agnetha Fältskog, pictured on the island of Ekero, near Stockholm, in 1999
And in the same year, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad’s marriage – which began in 1978 – also fell apart, resulting in a divorce.
After a tour, they returned to the studio in 1982, but realised that with both couples divorced, it was no longer any fun being Abba.
Fältskog, a single mother, felt guilty because of the time she had to spend away from her children while on tour.
She also suffered from overwhelming anxiety and her fear of flying – prompted by a terrifying experience on a private jet when the band was caught in a storm – got more severe and became a phobia of all travel.
And she found the fans terrifying, believing their ‘shouting, boiling, hysterical’ screaming was born of hate rather than admiration.
She would have terrible daydreams in which they set upon her and consumed her. After Abba broke up, Agnetha retreated. For years afterwards she didn’t even listen to music.
The pain of the split was immortalised in the hit The Winner Takes It All, and many fans have wondered over the years if Bjorn was being deliberately cruel in asking his ex-wife to sing the tragic lyric: ‘Tell me does she kiss like I used to kiss you?’
In 1990, Agnetha married for a second time — to divorced Swedish surgeon Tomas Sonnenfeld. The marriage was conducted, at Agnetha’s insistence, in secrecy, and became public knowledge only after it disintegrated three years later.
ABBA legends Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson revealed they could still be heard at Glastonbury as they spoke at Monday’s Q&A for the second anniversary of Abba Voyage
Every night the digital avatars perform their show in front of a 10-piece live ‘hero’ band (pictured) and it’s been suggested they could perform at Glastonbury in ABBAs place
The iconic hologram show has pumped £322million into the British economy – with more than a million tickets bought at up to £181.50 each
For many years after Abba’s break-up, Anni-Frid looked for family happiness.
She briefly moved to London before settling in Switzerland where, in 1992, she married a member of one of German’s royal houses, becoming Her Serene Highness Princess Anni-Frid of Reuss.
But tragedy was never far away. In 1998, her daughter, then 30, was killed in a car crash in New York,
The following year she lost her third husband, Heinrich Ruzzo Prinz Reuss von Plauen, to cancer.
For months afterwards she disappeared from public life and later spoke of how her faith in God had helped her overcome the trauma.
But, in recent years, she has found contentment, living happily in the Swiss mountain resort of Zermatt with WHSmith heir Viscount Hambleden.
Despite the band’s tetchy relationships, Björn and Benny revealed this week that ABBA could still be heard at Glastonbury, five years after insisting they wouldn’t reform for the festival.
In recent years, the band – which also features Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad – have been appearing on stage as holograms at the groundbreaking Abba Voyage show in London.
Every night the digital avatars perform their show in front of a 10-piece live ‘hero’ band. And Björn and Benny have suggested the hero band could recreate the experience at Glastonbury.
Following their 1980 divorce, Benny took up with Swedish TV personality Mona Norklit, to whom he has been married since 1981 and with whom he has a son, Ludwig
The remaining two members of the group, Benny (far right) and Anni-Frid (second from right), married in 1978 after a nine-year relationship but sadly divorced in 1981
Bjorn married Lena Kallersjo just six months after the divorce and they split in 2022, having also had two children (pictured in 2003)
During Monday’s Q&A for the second-anniversary celebration of Abba Voyage, host Pete Paphides suggested that the Abba Voyage live band could go to Glastonbury, to which Bjorn replied: ‘Oh yes!’
As the crowd cheered him on, Bjorn continued: ‘I think that’s a brilliant idea’ as Benny added: ‘you’d need to ask the band.’
Texas’ Sharleen Spiteri then asked the songwriting duo if they’d ever considered playing with the hero band during a Voyage show, with Benny confessing: ‘Definitely. Maybe if they play Glastonbury and need an extra piano player…’
Björn previously revealed it wouldn’t be possible to take the full ABBA Voyage experience – complete with avatars – on tour. Asked by NME last year if it could feature at Glastonbury, Bjorn shared: ‘I don’t think that’s possible, yet. It might be in the future.
‘As it is, it’s too complicated because the lighting, the sound, the visuals, everything is integrated and it’s so complicated.’
As for the real life members of ABBA, there’s no chance of seeing them on the Pyramid Stage. Quizzed about it on Radio 2’s Zoe Ball Breakfast Show in 2019, Björn said: ‘Oh no, it’s a straight, straight no.’
‘We recorded some new songs and you’ll probably hear them next year, at least one of them, but that’s quite a different thing from going through the hassle of rehearsing and – just one show, it would be the same as doing a whole year of tours,’ he said. ‘It would take 10 years out of our life.’
