Encouraged by this success of the 1972 hit 'People Need Love', ABBA entered the 1973 Swedish selections for the Eurovision Song Contest with the song ‘Ring Ring’. They finished third. The group entered again in 1974, this time with ‘Waterloo’, winning the international juries over. Next they got a major worldwide hit again with ‘SOS’, taken off their third album, simply titled ABBA. ‘Mamma Mia’, returned the group to the UK Number One spot, which they occupied a total of nine times between 74 and 80.

In April 1977, ‘Dancing Queen’ became ABBA’s only US Number One. In late 1976 ABBA’s fourth album, Arrival stormed up the charts and spawned hits such as ‘Money, Money, Money’ and ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’. 

In March 1980, ABBA took their tour to Japan for what turned out to be their very last live concerts. The rest of the year was devoted to the recording of ABBA’s next album, Super Trouper, containing classic hits like ‘The Winner Takes It All’ and the title track. In February 1981 the final blow was dealt to ABBA’s happy-couples image of the 1970s, when Benny and Frida announced their divorce. At the end of the year, ABBA’s eighth album, The Visitors, was released.

The only ABBA LP release of 1982 was a compilation double album of their hit singles, entitled The Singles – The First Ten Years, including two new songs. Although the single ‘The Day Before You Came’ was one of the group’s most accomplished recordings it failed to become a worldwide hit on the scale that they had been used to. At the end of 1982, ABBA decided to take a break.More than two decades after ABBA’s “temporary break”, there still has been no ABBA reunion. But the group’s music lives on.