20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection: Best Of ABBA CD

For The Best Of ABBA edition of 20th Century Masters/The Millennium Collection (Polydor/UME), released September 26, 2000, the group’s 11 biggest hits have been remastered from their original master tapes and collected on one album. To the dismay of music critics everywhere, the new millennium finds ABBA has become hip for the first time. 

The most commercially successful pop group of the ‘70s (more than 100 million records sold worldwide), ABBA was Agnetha Faltskog, Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Ani-Frid Lyngstad. In 1973, the foursome became the first Swedish act to win the Eurovision competition with its “Waterloo.” In the U.S., that title track from the group’s debut album hit #6. Its self-titled 1975 album yielded the Top 20s “S.O.S.” and “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do” and Top 40 “Mamma Mia,” but still ABBA was not a major hit in America.

ABBA finally arrived with 1976’s Arrival and its disco era gold-certified anthem “Dancing Queen,” the group’s only #1 hit, and the Top 20 “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” Arrival was ABBA’s first of four consecutive gold or platinum albums, and prompted its first Greatest Hits disk, which included the new Top 20 “Fernando.” 1977’s The Album featured the Top 20 “The Name Of The Game” and #3 gold “Take A Chance On Me.” Voulez-Vous followed in 1979 with “Chiquitita” and Super Trouper in 1980 with the group’s final Top 10, “The Winner Takes It All.”
Married couples Agnetha and Bjorn, Benny and Ani-Frid were by then divorced and, one album later, ABBA officially disbanded too in 1982. But the ABBA phenomenon never went away and in the early ‘90s ABBA Gold – Greatest Hits went triple platinum.

Today, nearly two decades after the group’s breakup, the ABBA phenomenon doesn’t merely endure--it continues to grow. The series 20th Century Masters/The Millennium Collection features new “best of” albums from the most significant music artists of the past century.