Abba - Dancing Queen 1976

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Midi playing "Dancing Queen" by Abba. To download midi click on title. DO NOT directly link to this file. When in doubt view the TERMS OF USE

You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life See that girl, watch that scene, dig in the Dancing Queen Friday night and the lights are low Looking out for the place to go Where they play the right music, getting in the swing You come in to look for a King Anybody could be that guy Night is young and the music's high With a bit of rock music, everything is fine You're in the mood for a dance And when you get the chance... You are the Dancing Queen, young and sweet, only seventeen Dancing Queen, feel the beat from the tambourine You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life See that girl, watch that scene, dig in the Dancing Queen You're a teaser, you turn 'em on Leave them burning and then you're gone Looking out for another, anyone will do You're in the mood for a dance And when you get the chance... You are the Dancing Queen, young and sweet, only seventeen Dancing Queen, feel the beat from the tambourine You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life See that girl, watch that scene, dig in the Dancing Queen

Brief biography courtesy of Wikipedia
ABBA was a Swedish pop group active from 1972 until 1982. The quartet was formed through the friendship of Benny Andersson and Bjšrn Ulvaeus and their respective girlfriends Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha FŠltskog, and together they topped charts worldwide from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. The name "ABBA" is an acronym formed from the first letters of each group member's given name. They remain a fixture of radio playlists and have reportedly sold more than 370 million records. ABBA was also the first pop group from mainland Europe to enjoy consistent success in the charts of the Anglophonic world (mainly the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), and its enormous popularity subsequently opened the doors for other Continental European acts. The music of ABBA has been re-imagined into a blockbuster musical Mamma Mia that has toured worldwide and is in production for a movie version to be released in 2008. Benny Andersson was, from the age of 18, a member of The Hep Stars, a popular Swedish pop-rock group that mostly performed covers of international hits. Their live shows were often accompanied by mob scenes. Andersson played keyboards and eventually started writing original compositions for his band, many of which became major hits including "No Response" (#3 in 1965), "Sunny Girl", "Wedding", "Consolation" (all of which hit #1 in 1966), and "Speleman". Bjšrn Ulvaeus from the age of 18 fronted The Hootenanny Singers, a popular Swedish folk-skiffle group. Ulvaeus started writing material for his band, and also attempted a brief solo career alongside it. His band and the Hep Stars sometimes crossed paths while touring, and on such an occasion in June 1966 Ulvaeus and Andersson decided to write a song together. This, their first attempt, was "Isn't It Easy to Say", later recorded by The Hep Stars. Stig Anderson, manager of the Hep Stars and founder of the Polar Music label, saw much potential in the collaboration, and encouraged them to compose more. Both also began occasionally playing with the other's band on stage and on record, although it wasn't until 1969 that the pair wrote and produced some of their first real hits together: "Ljuva Sextiotal" ('Merry Sixties'), recorded by Brita Borg and The Hep Stars' 1969 hit "Speleman". Andersson also had a fruitful songwriting collaboration with Lasse Berghagen, with whom he wrote and submitted the song "Hej, Clown" for the 1969 Melodifestivalen, the Swedish Eurovision Song Contest finals. The song tied for first, but re-voting relegated Andersson's song to #2. As their bands began to break up, Andersson and Ulvaeus teamed up and eventually recorded their first album together in 1970, called Lycka ("Happiness" in Swedish), which comprised original compositions sung by the two men. Ulvaeus still occasionally recorded and performed with the Hootenanny Singers until the summer of 1974, alongside ABBA. Agnetha FŠltskog had a #1 record in Sweden when she was only 17 and was soon noted by the critics and songwriters as a talented composer, most of her songs being in the schlager style. FŠltskog's main inspiration in her early years was singers in the style of Connie Francis. Along with her own compositions, she also recorded covers of foreign hits and performed them on tours in Swedish folkparks. She became one of the most popular Swedish female pop singers of the time. She even submitted a self-written song for Melodifestivalen when only 17 ("Fšrsonade"), which was rejected. Agnetha had briefly met Anni-Frid Lyngstad for the first time during a TV show in early 1968, and Bjšrn Ulvaeus at a concert venue a few months later. During filming of a Swedish TV special in March 1969, she met Ulvaeus again, and they eventually became a couple and married in 1971. In 1973, FŠltskog starred as Mary Magdalene in the original Swedish production of Jesus Christ Superstar and attracted favourable reviews. Between 1967 and 1975, FŠltskog released five studio albums. Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad sang from the age of 13 with various dance bands and worked mainly in a jazz-oriented cabaret style. In the summer of 1967, she won a national talent competition, and then signed with EMI. Lyngstad released several singles and performed regularly in the folkpark circuit and made appearances on radio and TV. She had met Bjšrn Ulvaeus briefly in 1963 during a talent contest, and Agnetha FŠltskog during a TV show in early 1968 and finally linked up with her future colleagues in 1969. On May 1, 1969, she participated in the Melodifestivalen, where she met Andersson for the first time. A few weeks later they met again during a concert tour in southern Sweden and they soon became a couple. Andersson also invited Lyngstad to sing backing vocals with FŠltskog on the Bjšrn & Benny debut album, Lycka (October 1970), and during this time he also started producing Lyngstad's debut album, Frida, which was released in March 1971 and praised by critics. Lyngstad also played in several revues and cabaret shows in Stockholm between 1969 and 1973. After ABBA formed, she recorded another successful album in 1975, Frida Ensam, which included the original Swedish rendition of "Fernando", which became a huge hit in Scandinavia before the English version was recorded. An attempt at combining their talents started in April 1970 when the two couples went on holiday together to the island of Cyprus. What started as singing for fun on the beach, ended up as an improvised live performance in front of the United Nations soldiers stationed on the island; - the future ABBA stars first ever performance. Bjšrn & Benny was at this time recording their first album together: "Lycka" ('Happiness') which was to be released in September 1970. Their girlfriends added backing vocals on several tracks, and the idea of them all working together, saw them launch their own stage act "Festfolk" (meaning in Swedish both 'Party People' and 'Engaged Couple') on November 1, 1970 in Gothenburg. The cabaret show attracted good reviews. Among the odd numbers, the foursome performed the B&B hit Hej, Gamle Man - and solo numbers from respective albums - but the foursome didn't feel like working together, and soon concentrated on individual projects again. After the 1970 release of Andersson & Ulvaeus' album "Lycka", two more B&B singles were released in Sweden: "Det Kan Ingen Doktor HjŠlpa" and "TŠnk Om Jorden Vore Ung", with more prominent vocals by Anni-Frid and Agnetha, and moderate chart success. Anni-Frid released her first studio album "Frida", and performed on her own; Agnetha released her fourth album and married Bjšrn July 6th 1971. Benny, Bjšrn and Agnetha started performing together on a regular basis this summer. Stig Anderson, owner of Polar, was determined to break into the mainstream international market with music by Benny and Bjšrn ("One day the pair of you will write a song that becomes a worldwide hit", he predicted). Stig encouraged Ulvaeus and Andersson to write a song for the Swedish preliminary of the Eurovision Song Contest, Melodifestivalen, and after two rejected entries in 1971 ("Det kan Ingen Doktor HjŠlpa" and "VŠlkommen Till VŠrlden"), Andersson & Ulvaeus submitted for the 1972 contest their new song "SŠg Det Med En SŒng" ("Say It with a Song"), and they chose newcomer Lena Anderson to perform. The song came third, convincing Stig he was on the right track. The song became a huge hit in Sweden. The first signs of foreign success came as a surprise, as the Bjšrn & Benny single She's My Kind Of Girl was released by chance by Epic in Japan in March 1972, giving the duo a Top 10 hit. Two more B&B singles were released in Japan: "Merry-Go-Round" and "Love Has Its Ways". Ulvaeus and Andersson persevered with their songwriting and experimented with new sounds and vocal arrangements. One of the songs they came up with was "People Need Love", released in June 1972, featuring guest vocals by the women, who were now given much greater prominence. Everyone involved felt enthusiastic about the new sound and Stig Anderson released it as a single, credited to Bjšrn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid. The song reached #17 in the Swedish combined single & album charts, enough to convince them they were on to something. The single also became the first record to chart for the quartet in the United States, where it peaked at #114 on the Cashboxsingles chart and #117 on Record World's singles chart. Billed as Bjšrn & Benny (with Svenska Flicka), it was released there on Playboy Records. However, according to Stig Anderson, "People Need Love" could have been a much bigger American hit, but a small label like Playboy Records did not have the distribution resources to meet the demand for the single from retailers and radio programmers . As 'People Need Love' did so well, the foursome decided to record their first album together. Recording sessions began September 26 1972, and by October, a handful of tracks were in the can. A particular track gave the two women the shared lead vocal: "Nina, Pretty Ballerina". The women's voices combined in harmonies for the first time gave them an idea of the qualities of their combined talents. For 1973, the foursome and their 'manager' Stig Anderson decided to have another try at the Melodifestivalen, this time with the song "Ring Ring." The studio sessions were handled by Michael B. Tretow, who experimented with a "wall of sound" production technique that became the wholly new ABBA sound. Anderson arranged an English translation of the lyrics by Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody and they thought this would be a surefire winner, but in the Melodifestivalen, on February 10, 1973, it came third, and thus never reached the international contest. Nevertheless the proto-group put out their first album, called Ring Ring, still carrying the awkward name of Bjšrn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida. The album did well and the "Ring Ring" single was a hit in many parts of Europe, but Stig Anderson felt the true breakthrough could only come with a UK or US hit. In the spring of 1973, Stig Anderson, tired of unwieldy names, started to refer to the group privately and publicly as ABBA. At first this was as a joke, since Abba was also the name of a well-known fish-canning company in Sweden. However, since the fish canners were more or less unknown outside Sweden, Anderson came to believe the name would work in international markets. A competition to find a suitable name for the group was held in a Gothenburg newspaper. The group were impressed with the names Alibaba and Baba, but in the end all the entries were ignored and it was announced in the summer that the name "ABBA" was official. Later the group negotiated with the canners for the right to the name. "ABBA" is an acronym formed from the first letters of each group member's name: Agnetha, Bjšrn, Benny and Anni-Frid (Frida). The first 'B' in the logo version of the name was reversed on the band's promotional material from 1976 onwards and became the group's registered trademark. The first time the name is found written on paper is on a recording session sheet from the Metronome Studio in Stockholm, dated October 16, 1973. It was first written as "Bjšrn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida", but was subsequently crossed out with "ABBA" written in large letters on top. Just as in 1972 and 1973, Ulvaeus, Andersson, and manager Stig Anderson believed in the possibilities of the Melodifestivalen and Eurovision. In late 1973, the composers were invited to contribute a song for the 1974 contest, and from a number of newly written compositions, the foursome chose the upbeat "Waterloo"; the group was now inspired by the growing glam rock scene in England. "Waterloo" was an unashamedly glam-style pop track produced with Michael B. Tretow's wall-of-sound approach. ABBA won their national heats on Swedish TV on February 9, 1974, and with this third attempt were far more experienced and better prepared for the international contest. With an album's worth of material released when the show was held at the Brighton Dome in England on April 6, 1974, the song won and catapulted them into British consciousness for the first timeÑand to the top of the charts all over Europe. Waterloo was ABBA's first UK #1 single. In the US, it reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, paving the way for their first album there (their second album, Waterloo, but now billed as ABBA)Ñalthough it only peaked at #145 on the Billboard 200 album chart. ABBA's follow-up single, "Honey, Honey", reached #27 in the US, and also became a top three hit in Germany. However, in the UK, a cover version of the song by the act Sweet Dreams made #10 on the chart. This was primarily because ABBA's British record company, Epic, decided to re-release "Ring Ring" (albeit in a remixed format) instead. It failed to reach the Top 30, increasing growing speculation that the group were simply Eurovision one-hit wonders. In November 1974, ABBA embarked on their first European tour, playing dates in Denmark, West Germany, and Austria. It wasn't as successful as the band had hoped, since most of the venues didn't sell out, and due to a lack of demand, they were even forced to cancel a few shows, including a sole scheduled concert in Switzerland. The second leg of the tour that took them through Scandinavia in January 1975 was entirely different: they played to full houses and finally got the reception they hoped for. For three weeks in the summer of 1975, ABBA compensated for the Swedish tour they had tentatively scheduled for the previous summer, but had to cancel after their Eurovision triumph. They played sixteen open-air dates in Sweden and Finland, attracting huge crowds. Their Stockholm show at the Gršna Lund amusement park was seen by an estimated audience of 19,200. The release of their third album, ABBA (known to fans as "The Limo Album"), and their single "SOS" consolidated their presence in the UK, where the single hit the top ten and the album reached #13. British success was further solidified with "Mamma Mia" reaching the UK #1 spot at the end of January 1976. In the US, "SOS" reached #10 on the Record World Top 100 singles chart and #15 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, picking up the BMI Award along the way as one of the most played songs on American radio in 1975. Yet the success of the group in the United States remained uneven. While they managed to break into the US singles market where, by early 1976, they already had four Top 30 singles, the album market proved to be tough to crack. The eponymous ABBA album generated no fewer than three real American hits, and yet it only peaked at #165 on the Cashbox album chart and #174 on the Billboard 200 chart. Opinions were voiced, by Creem in particular, that in the US ABBA had endured "a very sloppy promotional campaign". In March 1976, the band released the compilation Greatest Hits, despite having had only six Top 40 hits in the UK and the US. Nevertheless, it became their first UK #1 album and included "Fernando", which had originally been written in Swedish for Lyngstad's 1975 Andersson-produced solo LP, Frida ensam ( Frida alone), prompting a subsequent English-language recording by the group. Greatest Hits took ABBA into the Top 50 on the US album charts for the first time and eventually went on to sell more than a million copies there. In the US, "Fernando" reached the Top 10 of the Cashbox Top 100 singles chart and #13 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also topped the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, ABBA's first American number one single of any kind. In Australia, as of 2007 the song still jointly held the record for the most weeks spent at number oneÑ15 weeksÑalong with The Beatles' Hey Jude. The group's next album, Arrival, represented a new level of accomplishment in both songwriting and studio work, prompting rave reviews from more rock-orientated UK music weeklies such as Melody Maker and New Musical Express, and mostly appreciative notices from American critics. In fact, hit after hit flowed from Arrival: Money, Money, Money, Knowing Me, Knowing You and their most enduring and definitive hit, Dancing Queen. In 1977, Arrival was nominated for the inaugural BRIT Award in the category Best International Album of the Year. By this time ABBA were very popular in the UK, most of Western Europe and Australia. Their popularity in the US would remain on a comparatively smaller scale, and "Dancing Queen" became the only Billboard Hot 100 #1 single they ever had there (they did, however, get three more singles to the #1 position on other Billboard charts, including Billboard Adult Contemporary and Hot Dance Club Play). Nevertheless, Arrival finally became a true breakthrough release for ABBA on the US album market where it peaked at #20 on the Billboard album chart. In January 1977, ABBA hit the road. By this time, the group's status had changed dramatically and they were clearly regarded as superstars. They opened their much anticipated tour in Oslo, Norway, on 28 January, and mounted a lavishly produced spectacle that included a few scenes from their self-penned mini-operetta. The concert attracted immense media attention from across Europe and Australia. They continued the tour through Western Europe and ended it with shows in the UK in Manchester, Birmingham and two sold-out concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall. Tickets for these two shows were available only by mail application and it was later revealed that the box-office received 3.5 million requests for tickets. There were, however, complaints about the group's performance lacking "personality" and being "too polished" and "sterile". After the European part of the tour, in March 1977, ABBA played eleven dates in Australia. The trip was accompanied by mass hysteria and unprecedented media attention, and is vividly captured on film in ABBA: The Movie, directed by Lasse Hallstršm. The Australian tour and its subsequent ABBA: The Movie produced some ABBA lore, as well. Agnetha FŠltskog's blonde good looks had long made her the band's 'pin-up girl', a role she disdained. During the Australian tour, she performed in a skin-tight white jumpsuit, causing one Australian newspaper to use the headline "Agnetha's bottom tops dull show". When asked about this at a news conference, she replied: "Don't they have bottoms in Australia?" In December 1977 (January 1978 in many territories), ABBA followed up Arrival with the more musically and lyrically ambitious fifth album The Album, which was released to coincide with ABBA: The Movie. Although the album was less well-received by the critics in the UK, it did spawn more worldwide hits: "The Name of the Game" and "Take a Chance on Me", both of which topped the UK charts, and reached #12 and #3, respectively, on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the US. This album also included the ABBA signature tune, "Thank You for the Music", released as a single in the UK in 1983, and had been the B-side of "Eagle" in countries where the latter had been released. By 1978, ABBA were a megagroup. They converted a disused cinema into the Polar Music Studio, a new state-of-the-art studio in Stockholm which was used by several other bands (for example, Led Zeppelin's In Through the Out Door and Genesis' Duke were recorded there). During May, the group went to the US for a huge promotional campaign, being guests on Olivia Newton-John's TV show among other things. However, a lot of effort was put into the new recording studio in Stockholm. The recording sessions for "Summer Night City" were an uphill struggle, but upon release the song became a considerable hit for the group. The track would also set the stage for ABBA's foray into disco with their upcoming album. In January 1979, the group performed Chiquitita at the Music for UNICEF Concert held at the United Nations General Assembly. ABBA donated the copyright of this worldwide hit to the UNICEF; see Music for UNICEF Concert. The group's sixth album, Voulez-Vous, was released in April 1979, with two background tracks recorded in the famous Criteria Studios in Miami, U.S. with the assistance, among others, of the recording engineer Tom Dowd. The album topped the charts across Europe and in Japan, hit the Top 10 in Canada and Australia and the Top 20 in the US. None of the singles from the album reached #1 on the UK charts, but "Chiquitita", "Does Your Mother Know", "Angeleyes" (Double A-side in UK for the single Voulez-Vous) and "I Have a Dream" all charted no lower than #4. In Canada, "I Have a Dream" became ABBA's second #1 on the RPM Adult Contemporary chart (the first being "Fernando"). Later that year, the group released their second compilation album, Greatest Hits Vol. 2, which featured a brand new track: "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)", their best known disco hit in Europe. In Russia during the late 1970s, they were paid in oil commodities because of an embargo on the ruble. On September 13, 1979, ABBA began their first (and only) North American Tour at the Northlands Coliseum, in Edmonton, Canada, with a full house of 14,000. During the next four weeks, they played a total of seventeen sold-out dates, thirteen in the U.S. and four in Canada. The last scheduled ABBA concert on U.S. soil, in Washington, DC, was cancelled due to Agnetha FŠltskog's emotional distress suffered during the flight from New York to Boston, when the private plane she was on was subjected to extreme weather conditions (see Windsor Locks, Connecticut Tornado) and could not land for a long time. The tour ended with a show in Toronto, Canada at Maple Leaf Gardens before a capacity crowd of 18,000. The shows also generated the same type of complaints that were expressed during the group's 1977 tour: many fans regarded ABBA as more of a studio group than a live band. On October 19, 1979, the tour resumed in Western Europe where the band played 23 sold-out gigs, including an unprecedented six sold-out nights at London's Wembley Arena. In March 1980, ABBA travelled to Japan where upon their arrival at Narita International Airport, they were besieged by thousands of fans. The group played eleven concerts to full houses, including six shows at Tokyo's Budokan. This tour was the last "on the road" adventure of their career. The year 1980 saw the release of ABBA's seventh album Super Trouper, which reflected a certain change in ABBA's style with more prominent use of synthesisers and increasingly more personal lyrics. It set a record for the most pre-orders ever received for a UK album after one million copies were ordered before release. Anticipation for the album had been built up by "The Winner Takes It All", the group's eighth UK chart topper (and their first since 1978). In the US, the single reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and became ABBA's second Billboard Adult Contemporary #1. The song was allegedly written about Ulvaeus and FŠltskog's marital tribulations. The next single from the album, "Super Trouper", also hit #1 in the UK but failed to reach the Top 40 in the US. Another track from Super Trouper, "Lay All Your Love on Me", released in 1981 as a 12-inch single only in selected territories, managed to top the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart and peaked at #7 on the UK singles chart becoming at the time the highest ever charting 12-inch release in UK chart history. Also in 1980, ABBA recorded a compilation of Spanish-language versions of their hits called Gracias Por La Mœsica. It was released in Spanish-speaking countries as well as Japan and Australia. The album became a major success and along with the Spanish version of "Chiquitita", this signaled the group's breakthrough in South America. The Visitors (1981), ABBA's eighth and final studio album, showed a songwriting maturity and depth of feeling distinctly lacking from their earlier recordings but still placed the band squarely in the pop genre, with catchy tunes and harmonies. Although not revealed at the time of its release, the album's title track, according to Ulvaeus, refers to the secret meetings held against the approval of totalitarian governments in Soviet-dominated states, while other tracks address topics like failed relationships, the threat of war, ageing, loss of innocence, a parent watching a child grow up and so on. This change of content was reflected in the relative commercial decline, mostly evident in the UK, after the release of the #3 single "One of Us" in December 1981. Although it topped the charts across most of Europe, entered the Top 20 in France and Japan and the Top 30 in the US and Australia, The Visitors was not as commercially successful as its predecessors.. A track from the The Visitors, "When All is Said and Done", was released as a single in North America, Australia and New Zealand, and became ABBA's final Top 30 hit in the US, while reaching #4 on the RPM Adult Contemporary chart in Canada. The song's lyrics (as with "The Winner Takes It All" and "One of Us") dealt with the painful experience of splitting up from a long-term partner: February 1981 saw Andersson and Lyngstad announce their divorce, increasing speculation of tension within the band. Also released in the US was the title track of The Visitors, which hit the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart. In the spring of 1982, songwriting sessions had started, and the group came together for more recordings. Plans were sketchy, but a new album was discussed and the prospect raised of a small tour. The recording sessions in May and June were an uphill struggle, and only a handful of songs were eventually recorded. Several tapes were shelved, and the foursome took a break for the summer. Back in the studio in early August, the group had changed plans for the rest of the year: they settled for a Christmas release of a double album compilation of all their past successes to be named The Singles: The First Ten Years. New recording sessions took place, and during the autumn, they released the singles "The Day Before You Came"/"Cassandra" and "Under Attack"/"You Owe Me One", the A-sides of which were included on the compilation album. There was little interest in the singles, but the album went to #1 in the UK and Belgium, Top 5 in the Netherlands and West Germany and Top 20 in many other countries. Other songs recorded during the year, "I Am the City" and "Just Like That", were left in the can. "I Am the City" was eventually released as a bonus track on the compilation album More ABBA Gold in 1993. The group travelled to London to promote The Singles: The First Ten Years in the first week of November 1982, appearing on Saturday Superstore and The Late, Late Breakfast Show, and also to Germany in the second week, to perform in Show Express. On November 19, 1982, ABBA appeared for the last time in Sweden on the TV programme Nšjesmaskinen, and on December 11, 1982, they made their last performance ever Ñ transmitted to the UK on Noel Edmonds' The Late, Late Breakfast Show, via a live link from a TV studio in Stockholm. Although plans were to continue work as a foursome, they never got together again. Despite numerous requests from fans, Ulvaeus and Andersson are still refusing to release "Just Like That" in its entirety, even though it has surfaced on bootlegs. Andersson and Ulvaeus had meetings with Tim Rice in December 1981, and in early 1983 started songwriting sessions for their musical project Chess, while FŠltskog and Lyngstad both concentrated on their international solo careers. All four members made their last public appearance Ñ as four 'friends' more than as ABBA Ñ in January 1986, when they recorded a video of themselves performing an acoustic version of "Tivedshambo", (the first song written by their manager, Stig Anderson), for a Swedish TV show honouring Anderson on his 55th birthday. The four had not seen each other for more than two years. That same year the foursome also performed privately at another friend's 40th birthday: their old tour manager, Claes af Geijerstam. They sang a self-composed song titled "Der Kleine Franz" (later to surface in Chess). 1986 also saw the release of their ABBA Live album, featuring selections of live performances from their 1977 and 1979 tours. Their last known appearance (not filmed) as a group, was as guests in 1999 on the 50th birthday of Gšrel Hanser, long-time friend of all four, and also former secretary of Stig Anderson. Gšrel still works for Benny Andersson in his Mono Music offices, and handles matters concerning all four former members. Honouring Gšrel, ABBA performed a Swedish birthday song ("Med En Enkel Tulipan") a cappella. Nowadays Andersson and Ulvaeus are frequently at premi�res of the musical Mamma Mia! or other galas, every now and then joined by Frida Lyngstad, as at the show's fifth anniversary in London. All four members attended the premi�re in Stockholm of the Swedish staging of the musical, in February 2005, but were not seen nor photographed together. January 2007 saw FŠltskog and Ulvaeus attend the show's last performance. Benny Andersson has on several occasions performed old ABBA songs. In June 1992 he and Bjšrn Ulvaeus appeared with U2 at a Stockholm concert, singing the chorus of "Dancing Queen", and a few years later during the final performance of the B & B in Concert in Stockholm, Andersson joined the cast for an encore at the piano. Andersson frequently adds an ABBA song to the playlist when he performs with his BAO! band. He also played the piano during new recordings of the ABBA songs "Like an Angel Passing Through My Room" with opera singer Anne Sophie Von Otter, and "When All Is Said And Done" with Swede Victoria Tolstoy. Benny and Bjšrn both did an a capella rendition of the first verse of "Fernando" as they accepted their Ivor Novello award in London 2002. Frida Lyngstad performed and recorded an a cappella version of "Dancing Queen" with the Swedish group The Real Group in 1993, and has also re-recorded "I Have a Dream" with Swiss Dan Daniell in 2003. Apart from that, none of the former members perform their old songs. The four members have never officially announced the end of the group, but as the years pass by the chances of ABBA working together again have become increasingly slim, and the group is now considered dissolved. In October 1984, Ulvaeus and Andersson released the musical concept double album Chess, created together with lyricist Tim Rice, and with vocals by among others Elaine Paige, Murray Head, Barbara Dickson and swedes Tommy Kšrberg and Bjšrn Skifs. The singles "One Night in Bangkok" and "I Know Him So Well" were both huge successes. In May 1986, the musical premi�red in the West End of London, and ran for almost three years. On Broadway it opened in April 1988, but closed within two months due to very bad reviews. The musical has been staged regularly on small scale to great success, and even the concert version is popular. In Stockholm, the composers staged Chess PŒ Svenska ('Chess in Swedish') in 2003, with new material. What is considered to be Andersson and Ulvaeus' masterpiece, however, is Kristina frŒn DuvemŒla, a Swedish epic musical, which the composers premi�red in Malmš in southern Sweden in October 1995, directed for the stage by Lars Rudolfsson and based on the The Emigrants tetralogy by Swedish novelist Vilhelm Moberg. In Sweden, the tale of one family's migration from the poor SmŒland of 1840 to the promised lands in Minnesota is considered a national treasure. (The film version of 1971 was nominated for four Academy Awards.) The musical ran for five years in Stockholm, and an English version has been in the works for a long time, and it had been reported that the Broadway pre-production is in its earliest stage. Their next project was Mamma Mia!, a musical built around 24 of ABBA's songs and produced by Ulvaeus. It is a worldwide box-office blockbuster with versions in several languages currently being played in many countries, including the UK (West End premi�re in April 1999), USA (Broadway premi�re in 2001) and Sweden (Swedish language premi�re in 2005). A film version of Mamma Mia! is scheduled to premi�re on 18 July 2008. Since 1983, besides Chess and Kristina FrŒn DuvemŒla, Benny Andersson has continued writing songs with Bjšrn Ulvaeus. The pair produced two English language pop albums with Swedish duo Gemini in 1985 and 1987. The same year, Andersson released his first solo album on his own label, a collection of his own folk music material called Klinga Mina Klockor, and followed it with November 1989. In the 1990s, Benny wrote music for the popular Swedish cabaret quartet The Ainbusk Singers, giving them two massive hits: "Lassie" and "€lska Mig", and later produced ShapesÑan English language album by the group's Josefin NilssonÑwith all-new material by him and Ulvaeus. Andersson has regularly written music for films (most notably to Roy Andersson's Songs from the Second Floor), and in 2001 put together his own band, BAO!, which has released two successful albums in 2001 and 2004. Benny Andersson has the record of staying in the longest ever run in the Svensktoppen charts in April 2007 (the song "Du €r Min Man", sung by Helen Sjšholm is still there, in its 161th week as of August 5th 2007 [27] Andersson is currently recording new material with BAO! as well as producing the soundtrack to the Mamma Mia! film, using the musicians of ABBA's backing band. Bjšrn Ulvaeus is heavily involved in the musical Mamma Mia! and its current stagings worldwide. He has not appeared on stage performing music since ABBA, but had a reunion with his co-members of The Hootenanny Singers on 16 July 2005 at a music festival in his hometown of VŠstervik. Both female members of ABBA pursued solo careers on the international scene following the break-up of the band. In September 1982, Anni-Frid Lyngstad released her Phil Collins-produced album, Something's Going On. This Top 20 UK and Top 50 US release included the hit single "I Know There's Something Going On", which reached No.13 on the Billboard Hot 100, and became a Top Five hit in Australia and most of Europe. The album sold one million copies internationally. Agnetha FŠltskog followed in 1983 with the album Wrap Your Arms Around Me. This included the hit single "The Heat Is On", which was a big hit all over Europe and Scandinavia that year. In the US, FŠltskog scored a Billboard Top 30 hit with "Can't Shake Loose". In Europe, the single "Wrap Your Arms Around Me" was another successful hit, topping the charts in Belgium and Denmark, reaching the Top 5 in Sweden and Top 20 in Germany and France. Her album sold over 1.3 million copies worldwide. Lyngstad's second solo album, Shine (produced by Steve Lillywhite), released in 1984, was a moderate success in Sweden but a commercial failure elsewhere. FŠltskog fared better with her second post-ABBA solo album, Eyes of a Woman. It reached #2 in Sweden and performed reasonably well in Europe. The first single from the album was "I Won't Let You Go". After I Stand Alone, produced by Peter Cetera (which included the Billboard hit "I Wasn't The One") in 1988, FŠltskog withdrew from public life and halted her music career. In 1996, she released her autobiography, called As I Am, and a compilation album featuring her solo hits alongside some ABBA classics. In 2004, she made a successful comeback, releasing the critically acclaimed album My Colouring Book, which debuted at #1 in Sweden (achieving triple-platinum status), #6 in Germany, and #12 in the UK (winning a silver award). The album also achieved gold status in Finland. The single "If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind" became FŠltskog's biggest solo hit in the UK, reaching #9 in the midweek sales, but finally settling for the #11 position. The single reached #2 in Sweden and was a hit all over Scandinavia and Europe. Lately, FŠltskog's public appearances have been more frequent. In January 2007, she sang a live duet on stage with Swedish singer Tommy Kšrberg (of Chess fame) at the after party for the final showing of the ABBA musical, Mamma Mia!, in Stockholm, at which Benny Andersson and Bjšrn Ulvaeus were also present. It is rumoured that Agnetha FŠltskog is currently planning a new solo album to be released in 2008. Anni-Frid Lyngstad released her last album to date in 1996 (for Scandinavia only), the Swedish-language Djupa andetag (Deep Breaths). It reached #1 in Sweden, selling around 90,000 copies, although none of the singles released from the album reached the Top 10. In 2004, Lyngstad recorded a song called "The Sun Will Shine Again", written especially for her and released with former Deep Purple member Jon Lord, while the following year, she released a career retrospective DVD. Nowadays, Lyngstad lives a low-profile life but every now and then appears at a party or charity function. On 26 August 1992, she married Prince Heinrch Ruzzo Reuss von Plauen (24 May 1950 Ð 29 October 1999), of the German Reuss family. Von Plauen died of lymphoma at the age of 49. In addition to losing her husband, Lyngstad had also lost her daughter in a car crash a year earlier. After receiving little attention during the mid- and late 1980s, ABBA experienced a major resurgence in the new decade: starting with UK synth-pop duo Erasure's release of an EP featuring cover versions of their songs, which topped the charts in the spring of 1992. As U2 arrived in Stockholm for a concert in June of that year, the band paid homage to ABBA by inviting Bjšrn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson to join them on stage for a rendition of "Dancing Queen", playing guitar and keyboards. The September 1992 release of ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits, a new compilation album, ended up selling massively worldwide and setting chart longevity records. In the US, the album became the most popular ABBA release ever there, selling more than 22 million copies to date. The enormous interest in the Gold compilation saw the release of More ABBA Gold: More ABBA Hits in 1993. This collection also contained the bonus track "I Am the City", one of the unreleased songs from the 1982 recording sessions. In 1994, two Australian movies caught the attention of the world's media, both focussing on admiration for ABBA: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Muriel's Wedding. The same year, Thank You for the Music, a four-disc box set comprising all the group's hits and stand-out album tracks, was released with the involvement of all four members. For this release, several demo versions and odd tracks were discovered in the Polar vaults. ABBA were soon recognised and embraced by other acts: Evan Dando of The Lemonheads recorded what fans consider the best cover version of "Knowing Me, Knowing You", SinŽad O'Connor and Boyzone's Stephen Gately have recorded "Chiquitita", Tanita Tikaram, and Blancmange paid tribute to "The Day Before You Came", Cliff Richard covered "Lay All Your Love On Me", while Dionne Warwick recorded her version of "SOS". U.S. alternative-rock musician Marshall Crenshaw has also been known to play a version of "Knowing Me, Knowing You" in concert appearances. Tribute albums were released both in Sweden and the UK, and tribute bands such as Bjorn Again and Arrival found a market; the former had to put together several incarnations of themselves to cover the huge demand. In Sweden, the growing recognition of the legacy of Andersson and Ulvaeus resulted in the 1998 B & B Concerts: a tribute concert (with Swedish singers who had worked with the composers through the years) showcasing not only their ABBA years, but even hits from the 1960s and after ABBA. The concert was a huge success, released on CD, and later toured Scandinavia and even went to Beijing in China for two concerts. In 1999, Sweden saw the birth of ABBA Teens, later re-named A*Teens, recording techno-pop versions of ABBA songs to huge success worldwide: not only the English original versions, but ABBA's Spanish versions also. In April 1999, the Mamma Mia! musical opened in London, and soon premiŽred in cities worldwide to huge success. In 2000 ABBA were reported to have turned down an offer of approximately US$1,000,000,000 (one billion US dollars) to do a reunion tour consisting of 100 concerts. With Mamma Mia!'s huge success worldwide, and the forthcoming film starring Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan, there is a huge interest in ABBA's music. However, in a November 2004 interview with the German magazine Bunte, Ulvaeus said a reunion would not satisfy ABBA's many fans, even though there are legions of them around the world often clamouring for one.

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