How did you get into ABBA?

Marilyn

Marilyn

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Ahead of tonight's VOYAGE

How did you discover/get into ABBA? Are you lucky enough to recall any of their original run? Was it the early 90s renaissance with Gold? Mamma Mia (stage musical or film)? The 1999 BRITs perf :eyes:? Something else?

Share your ABBA memories below xo
 
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My mother was the perfect age for ABBAmania in Australia, so their records were in her collection (including the mega-selling The Best Of ABBA from 1975), however I don't think she ever re-bought any of their stuff on CD so my childhood exposure to them was pretty limited to what I saw/heard on TV/radio

The first ABBA-related material I owned myself actually was the Thank ABBA For The Music BRITs medley, which I stanned HARD :D Then they sort of floated around my consciousness for a few years as an act I'd like to know more about, until I was 16 or 17 and bought The Definitive Collection

www.discogs.com

ABBA - The Definitive Collection

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 2001 CD release of "The Definitive Collection" on Discogs.
www.discogs.com www.discogs.com

I'm so glad I started with The Definitive Collection rather than Gold, because I got to experience the less successful/stranger singles alongside the major classics - I didn't have to dig deeper to hear The Day Before You Came, Under Attack, Eagle, When All Is Said And Done etc. I got to hear a little bit of everything they could do straight away and it was really important in showing what fantastic artists they were in addition to being a hit machine. From there it was onto the studio albums, naturally starting with The Visitors because I had read (and heard from the tracks on The Definitive Collection) that it was the most miserable
 
I assume Dancing Queen and the like were drilled well into my conscious from an early age but my earliest physical memory of them is taking my Steps VHS to my nan's house and her commenting that they're "a bit like ABBA" and me thinking I must check them out.

Unfortunately the Pasta à l'Agnèthe was quite disappointing though. :(
 
Mum used to listen to them occasionally on road trips which piqued my interest, but we had a documentary shown here in 1995 hosted by my favourite Shortland Street star (:D) so I watched that and was hooked from age 7.

Had a few years out once Spicemania hit and I got more into music that was current and aimed at my age, but always enjoyed them and properly got back into them in my late teens as I fully appreciated them more.
 
ABBA Gold was one of a handful of CDs the family had when we got our first computer with a CD-drive in the early 1990s.

There must be something more as I’m not nearly as obsessed with Mr Acker Bilk.
 
My parents bought me ABBA Gold along with my first CD player for Xmas 1992.

I knew of them before as my Dad had their first GH and I knew Super Trouper from a compilation album. But getting Gold really was the beginning.
 
"Super Trouper" was one of about 15 albums my parents owned so they had the slight hurdle of being "yuk, mumndad music!" that you have when you're an arsehole of a child. But I always liked the title track and, oddly, The Piper. When I was growing up in the 80s, Abba were considered naff, a 70s throwback not beloved of the 80s grey cardigan-clad indie crowd of which I was an aspiring member.

Whatever anyone says, the turnaround was with Erasure's Abbaesque EP, possibly the single greatest gift from one artist to another in the history of popular music (only serious rival: David Bowie giving Mott The Hoople "All The Young Dudes"). It was no 1 for a month and a proper success. That was when people started talking about songs like The Winner Takes It All, Happy New Year and The Day Before You Came as examples of exquisite pop melancholy.

They were too everpresent for me to actually cough up for anything until Abba Gold finally looked at me sideways in HMV one Xmas Eve.
 
I remember seeing the video for Money Money Money on TOTP and thinking it was ever so glamorous. As much as I was getting LPs for birthdays and Christmas at a tender age, I never asked for Abba though - I preferred Brotherhood Of Man and The Dooleys, who were both contemporaneous with prime Abba. But my mum had a few Abba albums - Greatest Hits 1, Voulez Vous and Super Trouper. So I probably never needed to ask for them anyway.

I don't remember ever buying Abba music until I bought GHV2 on CD (Nice Price in Boots), only a few months or so before they released Gold - possibly inspired by Erasure's Abba-esque. Then I bought Gold and More Gold as soon as they were released. And I picked up a couple of the later studio albums (I think The Visitors and VV) before meeting Mr L, which was on New Year's Eve. In a gay pub. So they played Happy New Year. And the points I lost with him for having seen Spice World that day were more than made up for by knowing the words to Happy New Year.
 
I have no idea but I asked for ABBA Gold for Christmas one year. I think it was my first ever album*, although that might have been Spiceworld.

I've only ever owned a handful of albums in my life anyway. Thanks LIMEWIRE :disco:
 
ABBA EN ESPAÑOL of course :disco:

My dad had the cassette which he duly played in the car on our summer holiday trips. And the Super Trooper vinyl back home - such an ICONIC cover!
 
Personally I only ever got the Gold and More ABBA Gold collections but the Super Trouper vinyl was in the house when I was a child which my Auntie Bernadette had lent to my mum years before.
 
I loved the Erasure 'Abba-esque' EP, and then bought 'Gold' when it was released originally to cash in on that! Then 'More Gold', then gradually all of the albums.
 
As a child, I must have heard Dancing Queen/Mamma Mia quite a lot from some members of my family including my mother and some uncles and aunts at xmas parties, bdays and such.
Then as I grew older there was Abba Teens (later A*Teens) :shy: which were HUGE in here for some reason, and then the Brits performance, since I used to watch them religiously in the 90's, led me to investigate a bit more and bought Abba Gold naturally. Thanks to Spotify ages later, I was able to explore their discography thoroughly beyond the singles/more popular tracks.
 
It’s quite a difficult question really, since they basically stopped when I was born. I remember Money Money Money as a soundtrack to basically anything about money. But my parents and siblings never talked about them or played them.

ABBA-Esque I remember, and ABBA Mania I really got into. Feels like THAT should’ve been the trigger, and I know I bought ABBA Gold at Xmas 99 but I think it was a present for my nan.

I got the ABBA Generation the following year… I think I actually nicked Gold off my mum, so that much have been after 2001 when my Nan had died :(

so I was a disco hitz queen, I definitely listened to Gold after Hung Up, but Diddy Does ABBA was in 2011 and I finally listened to an album.

well done if you’re still reading this far down
 
I am pleased to hear that the Brits 99 performance touched more hearts than just mine.

its interesting to see that as many people got their first taste via tributes like Erasure, Brits, A*Teens etc as via their families
 
It must have been around ABBA Gold. I remember being on holiday (in Ayr!) and watching a documentary on them. They were to music what Disney were to animation, and the hits did not quit. The magic, spectacle and theatre all combined into melody. My mind went to a Kate Bush lyric after I finished I Still Have Faith In You: the thrill and the heartache will always be ABBA's.
 
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