This summer marks the jubilee of Abba’s eponymous 1975 album. It’s the album that proved the band was not just the one-hit wonder of the Swedish Eurovision winner “Waterloo,” and the songs on it, including “SOS” and “Mamma Mia” (also the name of the musical that returns to Broadway on August 2), made Abba one of the biggest groups in pop history.
The cover, with the four members sipping champagne in a Rolls-Royce, could be seen as a subtle “fuck you” to the band’s critics in Sweden at the time. The country was run by a social-democratic government for nearly half a century, from 1932 to 1976, and its left-wing musical manifestation, commonly known as “Svenska musikrörelsen,” had a big influence over newspapers, TV, and radio. (Commercial TV and radio was forbidden in Sweden until the late 80s.)
