History / Music

What's behind ABBA's incredible staying power?

08:24 am on 19 September 2021

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It has been more than 40 years since their last single, but ABBA are back in the charts with two new songs -- I Still Have Faith in You and Don't Shut Me Down.

ABBA's diehard fans certainly still have faith in them, though as ABBA fan expert Shanika Ranasinghe wrote in a recent piece in The Conversation, some of those fans would have died waiting for the Swedish pop group to put out new material. 

Shanika is a post grad student at Royal Holloway, University of London and a card-carrying member of the ABBA fan club. Her ongoing PhD research looks at ABBA fandom in the 21st-century, specifically ABBA's long-term fans.

Swedish pop group Abba Photo: AFP