we climb the steep all delve into its history and meet its caretaker's minster. in 60 minutes on d. w. as you can use it with thoughts, they will credit you for a one. you are the same way when people grinned from ear to ear, scream with joy and can't help but dance. with

no matter what age they are. then the reason for that might just be about a very good. i love our voc, brilliant bunk, minimum, my mom's favorite very, very good. these days you don't find very many who actually dislike about. but you find a lot of people who kind of like a lot of people who really do. it's an amazing phenomenon. everyone loves abba their music and their style. no one it seems actually hates. something a lot of musicians can only dream. so how did the foreign likable swedes do it? let's find out. with a weird is the fan stand today after their reunion

and sold out concerts in london? ah, the social media generation loves about the bands on tick tock channel featuring videos from the past and present has more than 2000000 followers, which isn't bad. but the hash tag abba alone, has billions of views, and abba is among the bands whose songs are most often covered by others. youtube features countless cover versions of their songs in every genre imaginable . i see that, oh was dempsey, geez, i teach generation spawns new ab fans. so what's behind the bands and during appeal, the sound, i guess,

especially the 2 guys voices. and maybe that's what appeals. but it's very difficult to say it's, it's really, it's for other people to try and explain that challenge accepted yon. we spoke to a music journalist, an opera singer, a former eurovision winner, a fashion designer, song writers, composers and producers. all of them know as personally and live in stock whole. a 2 couples behind about benny and any freed up, nita, and beyond. we're not always as well loved as they are today. in the beginning, a lot of journalists and fellow musicians thought the band was totally uncalled. back in the seventy's, in sweden, our mom was a no go. i you should definitely not listen to our by shouldn't praise them. they were always neglected by the media. while the me treated them, i was say in the beginning,

especially very badly, ah, because they were so commercial and there it says they want to be, they want it to be world famous politics and anti war. and, you know, you're not supposed to make money and, ah, you know, the, the moose, you know, and, and in some farm land, you know, where you're supposed to be genuine and all that stuff. so, yeah. so abba ly, they were in there. they were in their riding room on their island. oh, the 2 male members of alba, who wrote all the songs were seen as being a bit too business savvy. and then there was their stage where a combination of glam rock, folklore, and disco. you can still buy some of these classic outfits, but only in costume shops, which only goes to prove how recognizable the avalanche is. i think there oh

little bit too much actually. but it was not sexy and it was not cool. it was from ah, this is so crazy. yeah, it's i corner. while 19 seventy's rockstar is gained in for me for trashing hotel rooms in a drunken rampage. the members of alba had a squeaky clean family friendly image. married, well behaved, harmless scandals free. but while some mock them for that, their concerts like here in london, were attended by some very famous fam, abba songs, apparently had something that appealed to their hipaa rockstar colleagues.

ah no one really saw what happened back at wembley stadium london, 97th 8th. at backstage was, joe was drummer from backlash, who was a big abbot, myra and bruce springsteen was also a big fan of alba. lots of people understood very like, but this is like masterful pop music. do you have people like elvis costello and other pop writers going like we've always respected alba, but we couldn't say so when there were 20 when they were 22, like elvis costello was, he couldn't come out in the press and go like yeah,

i've been listening to, you know, super trooper like all day, you know, that wouldn't really work. but, but they were i with that's no longer a problem. even dave grow has described his band foo fighters as a cross between a punk rock band and how much they loved. but actually abs, coolness, transformation didn't start until 10 years after they broke up. and it was the gay club scene that celebrated their campy nist and helped usher in a revival of others music in the 1994 australian film, the adventures of priscilla, queen of the desert. ava's joyful kitch is raised to a new level. it becomes a key to personal freedom

with where most loyal fan base is, the gazing definitely and i think that's the way i boss. create that venue cbc. typical happy, sad is something that he said part of like gay contouring in, in the longer the perspective and of course, all that kitchen and costumes. so, so mcgasey nice extremely in par,

important for the life of now. but just as important was the phil muriel's wedding, also from 994 and also from australia, the country with the most loyal how the fans next to germany. here to the band itself never appears dancing to a soundtrack. the still an cool music of alba, a pair of social outcasts turned out to be the true win. ah ah ah,

criticized for became reasons to love them, but none of that would have been possible without their pop perfection. abbe did nothing by hats. they worked with only the very best musicians and from the start wanted the fullest sound for guitars instead of 2 to drum kits instead of one more of a small orchestra than just a band. with songs like waterloo and dancing clean. wouldn't have been possible without the wall of sound technique. abby didn't invent it, but they did make it their own. you listen to those production ideas and go like, why is everything so clear? even though i know that there are 2 or 3 different keyboards and there's a more, rambo, and there's this big piano underneath. and there's this wall of frieda anatomy. like why does this still sound so clean? you know, as opposed to just being like this mess of glop, even though it's like

a lots and lots of things. they thought it through. it's always an introduction reverse. then the, our story is different. ah. because does the middle 8? there's the extra rush. you sing a chorus and into the little extra thing on to it is ah, typical things for now both wrong is usually for me. it's the melancholy. it's, it's, they're both sad and happy at the same time. i pretty much all of them. oh, and i think it's in the music and it's playful. the songs are very playful, and they're very clear. and if the staccato in the songs are very tucked up that

early f, you know, it's very alba, you know, it's sort of classics meat sir. something else, but i think above is inspired by a classical music from beginning, ah, slipping through my fingers. ha, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no partner slipping through my fingers. ah, it could be a tre kosky. it could be true, but true. mom could be browse, i mean it's, it's this wonderful melodies, it makes me cry every time i or they've sold hundreds of millions of albums and released more than a 100 tracks. a mere fraction of the songs they wrote. some of them give insight into the bands private lives, with parents lyrics reflecting what was happening in the 2 couples marriages.

they were very swedish in the way the songs whereabouts for life. and we followed them into the success, into their marriages into the divorce and to their sudden end dealing with the end of his marriage and the possible end of his band. buran poured his sadness and disappointment into lyrics for his ex wife at nita to sing becoming her favorite song. few songs have taken such a melancholy look at the meaning of relationships. ah son riding aside abba would be nothing without the voices of the 2 singers. not only does each have an impressive vocal range, but they also harmonize perfectly. ah

every now and then in the history of music, voices meet up and i think in the arbor context, you know, something magical happened. if i remember correctly, they also used, you know, they speed it up a tape recorder. so things like that. when they recorded their voices and the and, and slow them down again. and that sort of created a, that the arbor sound they found in a 3rd voice. and it has very high as she still is a, it's so fragile. but still very, very powerful. and i think that's, that's her secret, unofficial qualities,

the alto and she's even deeper now her voice. 6 c c 6 c i mean, the 3rd voice is agnes and unafraid. combined together those voices singing those song. they help to make the swedish music scene. world famous sweden is one of our most successful pop exporting countries in the whole wide world. and abner was definitely the ones who kicked it all off when via had very big breakthrough, 1974 at the eurovision, which followed the will rocks at the ace of base and the card again, the sender mando, the old. but i'm, i was the 1st air act for a man, non english country who made it really big beyond and benny setting

a tone for writing, whether people wanna acknowledge it or not. it is that it's the most out of the song writing here. these that foundation, restoring a theatre is install coleman and the owning damn. and i'm trying to get, keep the music scene alive and, and, and help the music industry or musical industry or by doing production, shannon producing things. and i think by keeping their own brand alive there also are the same time working on helping. yeah. swedish music industry in general. i think of a certainly is very enterprising they may have seemed unassuming, back in 1972 in one of their 1st tv appearances, but behind that wasn't unwavering commitment to market. i went new mother as nieto skipped

a german t v. appearance to stay with her baby, the show had to go off. her friend ingle rwandan, took her place, hiding behind her hair and looking less uncomfortable. but no one would notice right. but seriously, it was their videos that were truly innovative, especially for the 1970s. nearly a decade before mtv revolutionized the format these days, some of their videos have been watched hundreds of millions of times on youtube with

they wanted to be stars. and they are, they really, you know, try to project in all the music and this start amendment the clothes and they took pictures, a lots of pictures, so many pictures. if you look at the album 0 ma'am later, i mean, i can't believe how many pictures they took all the time. i mean, it looks like they didn't do anything else than take pictures. after both couples divorced the band decided to call it quits in 1982. but every few years they managed to land a few koos without ever taking the stage. in 1992 they released a greatest hits album. alba, gold british pop, doyle eraser released an album of avar covers and it was clear habit was essential for any party with but buran and benny's sense. there was more to be

gained. now things started to happen in the 90s. the word change dates i to arbor and up by themselves, believe that we have so we can, we can go on. so that's very important. what happened when of a mera non existing band at the time then since it was all going so well and beerin and benny had been successful with other musicals, it was a no brainer to create. mama mia the musical. ah. the production premiered in london on april 6th, 1999. i think even the critics, most of like, they kept saw evolving and kept thinking how can we do more of that and can we? and i think they made more money from mommy or the musical than they have from the, from, from the records they've sold. mama, mia was such a success that hollywood came calling. the film version premiered in 2008 and

featured meryl streep and pierce brosnan, singing lou abas songs carried the stars to the phone with a light heartedness that enchanted her global audience. the sweetest mentality is a really fantastic because we don't care. but famous people when they did m. mamma mia, the film ed with meryl streep and all these big stars. i realize that mary street was actually more starstruck them all by themselves. the inevitable sequel followed a decade later, launching out his old hurts, back into the charts. in the meantime, the band had another plan to enshrine their legendary status, a monument to themselves. it kicked off in 2008 with the traveling exhibition, have a world feature and memorabilia. and an early version of today's advertise, which fans could join on stage.

then on may 7th, 2013. how about the museum? opened its doors to the public in the swedish capital stock horn, and once again, the band came new young fans. tourists now come from around the world to visit the museum. there been very thinking about it in their business manner. i think mostly bjorn is a very business minded man. benny is more of all the music all the time and he has his own little band replace folk music and but i mean, he's also part of the big musicals. but bjorn, i think is the more more business minded guy. seeing how bjorn deals with his investments and what he does actually with innovation and with gaming and all that other stuff. because he's created this world for himself and that be in the movies and everything. i mean it's no, you can't be more productive than that. actually. part of that is the development

of virtual reality tab tars, using motion capture recordings of singing and dancing stand ins as well as the original band members, the digital doppelganger is, are not just museum ready, but stage ready as well. have announced the release of 2 new songs and 2018 for concerts to be performed by the avatars. yet another coo, there are tech. no artists in san francisco, building my head as we speak. it all came together in an incredible come back in september 2021. when the band recorded a new studio album together. how about voyage? no one had expected it and the response was suitably sensation. a voyage because it's been a voyage in children. the pressure was on for the 1st

concert in may 2022 in london. if at all failed, the album legend would be tarnished the purpose bill venue. inexpensive flop and the avatars solis, empty reflections. but once again, other everything, right? seeing these images who still remembers the early versions of the avatars. it's not a game changer. it will be a milestone. i think in, in music entertainment, i think. yeah, and i've never had such a good time, but i'm happy now. but i, i think i'm a happier man now than i was in the seventy's or whether it's song writing, marketing, or crafting their image. it all seems to have come easy for ab yet they've always state grounded in the end. abby stands for one thing above all, and it's perhaps the reason everyone loves them. it's the memory. when people hear

abba, they think of their youth. i was on a friend when i was young. denovia was pick one of the girls and i was, i was on the fleet. i'm originally from uganda, between 71 to 79. uganda was in a very odd thomas state. if there's anything that i can remember, it's alba was always in the airways. i don't think there's any other group that we played so much than about music and that goes for basically all the sort of top 40 stations. and so even still, and a lot of people to day cohen c, mama, me on. i don't, i don't maybe they don't even know what i buy. it's, you know, i think it's my mommy, you know. so i think over the generations, if it's good enough it'll, it'll come through. if everybody could write a song like alber all, everybody would now not the seventy's, of course, because it wasn't cool. mere one of the most covert artist of all time. just like

for beat us friday nights in the light. so it's a lucky twist of fate for ab that their songs have remained so timeless. where the play the right music is when you come to look for king. do do, do you agree? ah, but john himself says it best in the story about these 4 people who came together by chance to beautiful women with fantastic voices should meet and fall in love with 2 guys who happened to be so bright and that they should form a group. and that the amusing would leave long. i mean, what are the odds against that? that's a wonderful story. ah,

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