ABBA
ABBA built a complete video catalogue before there was anywhere to show it. MTV launched in August 1981 and the group stopped working the year after — so almost everything on this page was made for a world with no music channel in it.
The reason was logistics rather than art. From 1974 the band wanted clips they could send to territories a Swedish act could not easily reach, Australia above all, instead of touring to them. The group had decided early on to put its energy into writing and recording rather than the road, and Agnetha Fältskog had small children at home. So they filmed instead of travelling.
The man they hired was Lasse Hallström, and he directed eighteen of the twenty-two videos here — the longest run between a single artist and a single director anywhere on this site. The circumstances were nothing like the budgets that arrived a decade later: the clips were shot cheaply and fast, and on some days he finished two of them. He was later nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director twice, for My Life as a Dog (1985) and The Cider House Rules (1999).
Dancing Queen has since passed a billion views. It was made in 1976 by a young Swedish filmmaker working quickly and without money, for a band that had decided it would rather stay home.
3:05
2:47
3:16
3:31
3:19
3:53
4:14
3:07
3:50
3:58
3:49
4:57
3:46
3:59
4:21
5:20
3:11
3:17
4:13
