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The World That ABBA Made | The New Yorker

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It once seemed unlikely that four Swedes in sequins would become global pop icons. A new biography describes how the band became ubiquitous. There is probably not a second that goes by without an ABBA song being played somewhere in the world. A remix of “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” is pulsing through a club on a Mediterranean island, a Vietnamese grocery store is piping in “Happy New Year,” a Mexican radio station is playing the Spanish-language version of “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” Live performances, too, continue unabated, and not just in karaoke bars, or in stage productions of “Mamma Mia!” Maybe it is morning in Kawasaki, Japan, and a tribute band is performing for thirty people in a public square, or evening in Johannesburg, where a different tribute act plays to a sold-out theatre. (The group Björn Again, the best known of these reënactors, claims to have been summoned to perform for an enthusiastic Vladimir Putin; the Kremlin denies this.) In London, you can see

Save this story Save this story There is probably not a second that goes by without an ABBA song being played somewhere in the world. A remix of “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” is pulsing through a club on a Mediterranean island, a Vietnamese grocery store is piping in “Happy New Year,” a Mexican radio station is playing the Spanish-language version of “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” Live performances, too, continue unabated, and not just in karaoke bars, or in stage productions of “ Mamma Mia! ” Maybe it is morning in Kawasaki, Japan, and a tribute band is performing for thirty peopl

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