ABBA GOLD 40th Anniversary Edition In hindsight, ABBA seems to have enjoyed uninterrupted success, but that’s forgetting the 1980s — a decade of oblivion for ABBA. The group’s last two singles in 1982 were flops. From 1982 to 1992 ABBA were almost banished from the airwaves. The group’s albums were listed as out of print and disappeared from the shops. “We were convinced it was all over,” says Benny Andersson today. “We figured on royalties coming in during 1983, maybe until 1984, but after that? No way.” “In the 1980s we were off the radar,” says Björn Ulvaeus. “The general attitude was that ABBA was totally uncool. If, like me, you’ve got poor self-confidence, it was hard to not figure ‘That’s it. It’s over.’ The resurrection of ABBA started in 1992. One sign was when U2, on their Zoo TV Tour, included a cover of “Dancing Queen”. Another was when Nirvana played the Reading festival in England that same year and Kurt Cobain personally requested the ABBA cover band Björn Again as their support act. At this time, scripts were being put together for two Australian movies with ABBA songs central to the plot: Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Muriel’s Wedding. The peak of the 1992 ABBA revival was when the English synth-pop duo Erasure released their tribute EP, Abba-esque, with their interpretations of four ABBA songs. When Erasure’s Abba-esque hit the top of the charts, Polygram (today a division of Universal) roused itself from slumber. Polygram withdrew all the old alb