The Story of ABBA: Melancholy Undercover

With tunes as intoxicating as a bottle of aquavit, ABBA has enjoyed worldwide popularity for over 50 years, notably becoming Sweden’s first winner in the Eurovision Song Contest with 1974’s “Waterloo,” backed by an orchestra led by a conductor dressed as Napoleon. Gradvall, an award-winning writer on pop culture, takes a deep dive into the story of Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, based on decades of exclusive interviews with the four ABBA members. He writes that their sound constantly changed and evolved through the years, including a disco phase, a synth-pop phase, and more. The book’s biographical chapters on each ABBA member are interspersed with the origin stories of many of their hit songs and behind-the-scenes accounts of music production set in modern Swedish pop culture. ABBA is still vital: their virtual concert film/tour, ABBA Voyage, has been touring since 2022, and their Broadway musical Mamma Mia (which ran from 2001 to 2015) is returning to Broadway in August 2025.