The Music of ABBA: A discography
The trademark ABBA sound consists of two main ingredients: keyboard-based wall-of-sound arrangements, and the soprano and mezzosoprano voices of Agnetha and Frida respectively. As Benny has pointed out, the records would have sounded completely different if the lead vocalists had been any others than Agnetha and Frida.
A strong melody was of course always at the core of ABBA's recordings. Experimentation with effects, often courtesy of their sound engineer Michael Tretow, added to the overall impression of state-of-the-art production values. The very earliest recordings from 1972 and 1973 were rather sparsely produced, however, the main exception and first indication of ABBA's future soundscape being the song Ring Ring.
In 1975, the group had pretty much arrived at the multi-layered sound that would carry them through the peak years of their popularity on albums such as ABBA, Arrival, ABBA - The Album and Voulez-Vous. The arrival of the 1980s saw a return to the slightly more bare production of their early days - with Benny's synthesizers very much to the fore - although with an added maturity that put its mark on their last album The Visitors in 1981.
This discography refers to the single and album releases as conceived by ABBA and their Swedish record company Polar during the time of the group's existence between 1972 and 1982 (excluding promotional releases). All records are credited to ABBA unless otherwise stated. Recording dates refer to the version released. Recording locations mentioned are all in Stockholm, Sweden unless otherwise indicated.
You can also read ABBA's Lyrics. And don't forget to look at complete list of ABBA's songs.
Singles
Song | Australia charts | UK charts | West German charts | The Netherlans charts | Zimbabwe charts | Norwegian charts | Belgian charts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chiquitita | 4 th. | 2 nd. | 3 rd. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 4 th. | 1 st. |
| Dancing Queen | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. |
| Fernando | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 2 nd. | 2 nd. | 1 st. |
| S.O.S. | 1 st. | 6 th. | 1 st. | 2 nd. | 2 nd. | 2 nd. | 1 st. |
| Waterloo | 4 th. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 2 nd. | 2 nd. | 1 st. | 1 st. |
Albums
Song | Australia charts | UK charts | The Netherlans charts | Zimbabwe charts | Norwegian charts | Belgian charts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ABBA - The Album | 4 th. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. |
| ABBA Gold | 1 st. | 1 st. | 2 nd. | - | 1 st. | 1 st. |
| Arrival | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. |
| Super Trouper | 5 th. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. |
| The Visitors | 22 th. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. |
| Voulez-Vous | 5 th. | 1 st. | 2 nd. | 1 st. | 1 st. | 1 st. |
Here is ABBA's album covers. Click for full size image.
